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Sister Mary Jo may have just become the coolest nun in Chicago, thanks to her super pitching skills.
The Chicago White Sox invited Sister Mary Jo Sobieck to throw the ceremonial first pitch during a home game against the Kansas City Royals on Saturday 18 August, reports TIME.
Throwing the ceremonial first pitch – a US baseball tradition – can be an embarrassing experience for the non-athletes, but Sister Mary Jo, who works at Marian Catholic High School in Chicago in the US, absolutely nailed it.
Before throwing the ball, the nun wowed the crowd by bouncing it effortlessly off her bicep and into her hand, sending the crowd into raptures.
She then sent the bail sailing straight into the White Sox’s Lucas Giolito’s hand.
The clip of her perfect throw has since gone viral – she was invited to appear on ABC’s Good Morning America and is even getting her very own bobble head!
"It was awesome," Lucas Giolito said after the game, MLB.com reports. "She had a whole routine. She had it planned out. I was just lucky to be back there. She threw a perfect pitch."
Her skills so impressed White Sox manager Rick Renteria that he even asked her to join the team.
"I was like, 'OK, she looks like she can play a little bit’, so we started talking to her,” he said after the fact.
“I think she said, 'I played center and short.' I said to her, 'Can you play for us?' She said, 'Sure’.”
Unfortunately the White Sox lost 3-1 to the Royals – but the game was clearly a winner for Mary Jo.
On her appearance on Good Morning America, the nun revealed she hadn’t planned her pre-pitch trick at all – she was just trying to calm her nerves.
"I had to do something to take my mind off it," Sister Mary Jo said. "It's too awkward to just stand and throw from the jump and I had to just do something to put me in motion."
Watch the video here:
Sources: TIME, Good Morning America, Metro, MLB.com, Facebook/WhiteSox, Instagram/marian_catholic/
