While attending a Padres game this weekend I was asked “why do the Padres have a friar for their mascot and not a padre?” (paraphrased)
I really had no answer to this question. I hadn’t even thought much about it during my numerous years living in-and-around San Diego.
I attended my first Padre game back at Jack Murphy (“The Murph”) Stadium around 1996 just before Qualcomm purchased the naming rights in 1997.
As a young kid playing baseball very far east of southern California in the 80s, I was (still am) a huge fan of Tony Gwynn and so I watched the Padres from afar. (I’m still holding out hope that he’ll run for mayor and fix all of our city problems…)
During the 80s years, San Diego had another more popular mascot – The San Diego Chicken, so I never really questioned the concept of a Padre or Friar (I probably didn’t even know what a Padre was back then).
The “Swinging Friar” has been the San Diego Padres mascot since the late 1950s. The friar is named after the Spanish missionaries settled by Franciscan friars. There’s numerous missions along the California coast that were settled by these friars to convert the Native Americans to Christianity, but now where does the “Padres” come from?
Wikipedia terms:
- Friar – A friar is a member of a Roman Catholic religious mendicant order of men, that is, an order primarily supported by charity. Most friars are either Augustinians, Carmelites, Dominicans, or Franciscans.
- Padre – Padre is a commonly used term for a military chaplain in the American, British, French and the Canadian Forces. “Padre” (Spanish and Italian for Father) is the common term of address for all chaplains by all ranks.
As you can see, the terms Friar and Padre are closely related… well, at least a little more related than our former mascot… the San Diego Chicken.
So I think the term friar is more general to include non-priests, non-fathers, non-chaplains. So maybe the term “Swinging Friar” (in contrast to “Swinging Padre”) is meant to symbolize a follower of the Padres (chaplains/priests) than an actual Padre?
“I like the friar because he’s always smiling and hitting it over the fence,” said fan Susan Baird. “He represents San Diego: Nice people, but we can kick butt when we have to.”
- Sports Illustrated 1998
So I think the answer is: Nobody really knows why San Diego has a “Swinging Friar” instead of a “Swinging Padre” as it’s mascot. It’s one of those things that has just always been there.
Maybe a trip to the San Diego Hall of Champions Sports Museum can clear things up.
