Hello fellow members of the Friar Faithful,

This will be my first blog published about our San Diego Padres, so I might as well introduce myself. I will have a 2025 season preview blog as my next post, so for those of you looking for actual current Padres content as we approach Opening Day, I suggest you head there. For those of you interested in my background as a Padres fan, continue on.

My name is Chase Izidoro, and I have been a Padres fan my entire life. Born in ’95 so I can’t really remember ’98, but my earliest memories of Padres baseball do go back to “the Q.” It was a game against the Seattle Mariners during Ichiro’s rookie season, and I was sitting in the upper deck down the right field line. The most vivid memories from that game: the palm trees nestled behind the outfield wall, the upper deck lights of Qualcomm Stadium, and Phil Nevin hitting a dinger. After that it all goes dark, though I do know I became a huge Mark Kotsay fan after that game; I don’t understand the correlation either, but I assure you it happened.

Here’s my pops and I back in 2000 at the Q, on my 5th birthday where the Padres beat the Cubs, 6-5 (had to squint real hard to read that beautiful old scoreboard). I don’t remember this game, but Baseball Reference says that Trevor Hoffman got that save that day; and anytime you got to hear “Hells Bells,” you definitely got your money’s worth.

I can’t remember when my fandom started, it’s just always been there; probably even before I gained full consciousness in this life. Over the years I have watched way too much Padres baseball, arguably a disgusting amount for how bad the Friars have been since 1995.

I never miss a game, even those dog day games in late August where we were already approaching playoff elimination before September even hit.

I’ve even been caught on television a few times:

That’s Nick Boone to my left. Great friend, and just as big of a Padres fan as I am. We were getting killed by Corbin Burns and the Brewers that game, but the beers inside of us said that we still had a chance… It was time for the rally caps. I do believe they didn’t work, but we weren’t going to let a 6-0 lead in the 9th kill our delusions.

How about another flash on the big screen:

Is that a cowboy hat with a Tony Gwynn pin for Chris Paddack?… yup. Is that a matching Padres sheriff shirt for Chris Paddack?…sure is. In my defense, this was his game against the Mets in 2019 when he was coming off a dominant April. So the love for the rookie sheriff was at an all-time high.

Actually a funny story behind that game, I shall set the scene: It was a Monday, and I had the day off from work. MLB had just announced the Rookie of the Month award for April, and Pete Alonso won the award over Chris Paddack. Paddack was interviewed about it, and said he thought he deserved the award, he really didn’t say anything negative about Pete, Chris was just a competitor. Alonso heard his remarks, and took them out of context. Pete replied along the lines of “Maybe he should just pitch better,” and so the stage was set.

The Padres were set to host the Mets that night, and Paddack was pitching. Who was on the hill against him? None other than arguably the nastiest pitcher on the planet in 2019, Jacob DeGrom. I had a moment to myself and said, “What else am I going to do tonight?” I went to check the price for tickets….$25 for the right field bleachers… say less.

I went to the game by myself, and when I arrived at the game, there was almost nobody else out in right field that night. I think I legit may have been the only person in my section. I didn’t sit in my seat, I decided to go a few rows up, and for some reason, I stopped one seat away from the railing overlooking the deck area in right-center. No big deal, there’s nobody else out here.

In comes the other gentleman in the photo. He walks all the way up to where I was sitting and politely says, “Hey, you’re in my seat.” There is nobody else around us for the entire section…so when he said that, I turned and looked over my shoulder to the hundreds of other seats around me, looked back up at him and made eye contact, and then I passive aggressively moved one seat over to my right. I thought that would send the message, but alas, he sat down in his rightful seat, and bottled me up against him and that fence for the entire game.

It was like a scene out of Major League, we had became those fans in the empty bleachers for a bad ballclub on a random Monday.

We didn’t say a word to each other for 5 innings, we just sat in silence, only cheering every time Paddack punched out the 11 Mets he struck out that night (including 2 strikeouts of Pete Alonso). I think Paddack’s dominance finally brought us together, and he finally broke the silence, as he turned to me and said, “I want to apologize, I didn’t mean to be rude.” The funny part, he wasn’t rude. He was polite and was simply asking for his seat.

I felt bad driving this guy to the point where felt he needed to apologize to me over his own seat, so we chatted it up the rest of the game. He was a cool dude, the Padres won 4-0, and we went our separate ways. Hope that guy is doing well, he was there for the dog days, just as I had been.

We got off track there, although it was a great story, let’s catch up to today…I’m still on television. Though now, I get to cover the Padres:

I’m lucky enough to get paid to cover our Padres as a Sports Journalist for KUSI & FOX 5.

But this blog is a non-affiliate of my day job. This is just a way for me to talk about our Padres in an informal setting.

I’ll probably end up starting a Padres podcast here soon as well (to join the other 8,000 of those that already exist), to give you guys an audio version of my thoughts on the Swinging Friars.

I don’t anticipate every blog to be this long. It’ll be a mixture: 1/2 full length blog, 1/2 something quick for you guys to read on the trolley ride to the ballpark.

I hope you all join along in my posts, feel free to comment, DM, or email me with questions and thoughts and I’ll address them as they come in.

Cheers, and Go Pads,

– Chase