{"id":546916,"date":"2026-01-31T01:58:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T01:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/546916\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T01:58:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T01:58:16","slug":"padres-community-tour-a-thank-you-ahead-of-2026-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/546916\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres’ community tour a thank you ahead of 2026 season"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN YSIDRO \u2014 The students at Smythe Elementary School were encouraged to wear Padres gear for Friday\u2019s spirit day, but Humberto Carrillo had intel on top of that: Something was up.<\/p>\n

So the 9-year-old fourth-grader not only wore a Padres jersey to school, he wore baseball sliding pants, too. Carrillo also brought a baseball and a trading card depicting one of his favorite players.<\/p>\n

Hours later, two small hands gripping both pieces of memorabilia \u2014 newly signed by Fernando Tatis Jr. \u2014 shook as he wrapped his mind around what had just occurred in his classroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday is very special,\u201d Carrillo said. \u201cI\u2019m just like, \u2018Wow.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA few of the students from Smythe Elementary School were lucky enough to have an autographed baseball card of Padres player Fernando Tatis Jr. (Nelvin C. Cepeda \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

The boy repeated the exclamation several times while Tatis and several players handed out hats and brown-and-gold \u201cSD\u201d necklaces, signed items and posed for selfies during a surprise morning stop for one of four buses carrying Padres players into the community ahead of Saturday\u2019s FanFest at Petco Park.<\/p>\n

The players visited Walker Elementary\u2019s STEAM lab, helped students shop for books at Rowan Elementary\u2019s Scholastic Book Fair and played whiffle ball with kids at Angier Elementary. They also toured a helicopter squadron at MCAS Miramar, visited senior residents at Merrill Gardens, met with families at Ronald McDonald House Charities of San Diego, played with rescue dogs at The Animal Pad and thanked first responders at Fire Station No. 4 in the East Village.<\/p>\n

The stops came ahead of FanFest, which starts at 10 a.m. inside Petco Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely brings a different motivation and reminds you how delicate we are in the community, how special the bond is between the players and the community, the Padres \u2026 and the community,\u201d Tatis said. \u201cIt feels really special to be a part of it and help it grow a little bit more.\u201d<\/p>\n

That bond has certainly grown at the gate, with the Padres ranking inside MLB\u2019s top five in attendance in each year since the end of the pandemic. In 2025, the Padres outdrew every team in the majors except the Dodgers.<\/p>\n

Scenes like the ones that played out at Smythe Elementary School is one way the team can give thanks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is cool,\u201d said Padres reliever David Morgan, a San Diego native. \u201cJust to see the community, to see the kids and how stoked they are to see us. That \u2026 makes us realize how big our impact is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"3rd3rd graders from Smythe Elementary School met and took photos with a few of the Padres players in their classroom on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026, in San Diego, CA. (Nelvin C. Cepeda \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

Tatis, Morgan, Padres Hall-of-Famer Jake Peavy, pitchers Jeremiah Estrada, Kyle Hart, Bradgley Rodriguez and Matt Waldron and Padres chief executive officer Erik Greupner poured out of a chartered bus shortly before 10:30 a.m. Friday. Their mission at the Smythe stop was to visit a special-needs class and three other classrooms recognized for outstanding attendance, as well as living up to the school\u2019s ROAR \u2014 Respectful & Kind, Always Safe, Own Choices, Regulate Emotions \u2014 mantra.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a privilege and an honor,\u201d Greupner said. \u201cWe are given a platform in our community as an organization and these players to give back in a way that not many people can. When Fernando Tatis Jr. walks into a classroom and we deliver the message to these students that he\u2019s here because they\u2019re good students, and that they\u2019re working hard and that what they\u2019re doing in school is important for their future, and Fernando Tatis Jr. is the one that\u2019s helping to deliver that message, I can\u2019t think of many things that are more motivating or encouraging for kids than to get encouragement from somebody that just appears larger than life to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA student from Smythe Elementary School used his smartphone to videotape the visit of a few of the Padres players to their classroom on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026, in San Diego, CA.\u00a0 (Nelvin C. Cepeda \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

Greupner and the players queried kids about their favorite classes (recess was a popular pick), their favorite Padres and why they thought school was important. The kids asked the Padres\u2019 questions, too, with one child telling Tatis that he\u2019d met the superstar\u2019s younger brother. Asked which Tatis brother was better, the student said both were good players.<\/p>\n

Across the classroom, Peavy applauded the kindness, a theme the former NL Cy Young winner touched on multiple times on this stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see a lot of stuff happening in the world,\u201d Peavy told the last class of the visit. \u201cIt\u2019s a crazy place you\u2019re coming up in. How we can change it is being kind to each other. We have to take care of each other. We are San Diego. We are community. If we\u2019re going to change it, it\u2019s you guys. How we do that is being kind to each other. So find that person who doesn\u2019t have a friend and be that friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Padres FanFest<\/p>\n

When: Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.<\/p>\n

Where: Petco Park<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN YSIDRO \u2014 The students at Smythe Elementary School were encouraged to wear Padres gear for Friday\u2019s spirit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,853,4,43,137,18,4339,4338,185,3546],"class_list":{"0":"post-546916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego-padres","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-padres","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-padres","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-sandiegopadres","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115987239732598100","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}