“DC Padres” set to pitch their vocation on the baseball field
August 19, 2013
The DC Padres baseball team, comprised of local priests and seminarians, will be taking the field to raise awareness of and interest in vocations to the priesthood.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
4:30 p.m.
Prince George’s Stadium (home of the Bowie Baysox)
4101 Crain Highway
Bowie, MD 20716
The Padres will be playing Bishop McNamara High School’s (BMHS) Varsity baseball team at Prince George’s Stadium in Bowie, home of the Bowie Baysox. The Baysox play at 2:00 p.m., and the Padres will take the field after that game at approximately 4:30 p.m.
Fr. Bill Byrne, pastor of St. Peter’s on Capitol Hill and Secretary for Pastoral Ministry and Social Concerns for the archdiocese, will throw out the first pitch and will give a talk on vocations to the priesthood during the 3rd inning stretch of the game.
The DC Padres is made up of nine Catholic priests – seven from the Archdiocese of Washington and two from the Diocese of Arlington – as well as 12 seminarians from various dioceses. Each played varsity baseball in high school and eight of the men played baseball at the college level. In their 3rd season with a 3-3-1 record so far, they have played at three different minor league stadiums and drawn crowds of up to 1,000 people.
The team was started by Fr. Larry Swink and Fr. Larry Young, both pastors of the Archdiocese of Washington. “The DC Padres are using this incredibly fun and healthy venue to share the good news about the great vocation to the priesthood,” said Fr. Young. “I think it gives people hope to see the youth, vitality and flat out audacity of the DC Padres, to suit up, step up to the plate and face an 80 mph fastball, or pull down a blistering line drive with a piece of cowhide. It shows people a different side of the clergy.”
This is the first time the team has played BMHS. For Padres player, Fr. Davis Wells, administrator of Immaculate Conception Parish in Mechanicsville, Maryland, the game will be a face-off of sorts against his former coach. The head coach of BMHS coached Fr. Wells when he was growing up in Bowie.
Discounted tickets to the game can be purchased through the Bishop McNamara Alumni Office for $8 (instead of the $12 general admission ticket sold by the Baysox) at www.bmhs.org/events/bmhs-welcome-home-baysox-stadium-august-25-2013. Tickets are good for both the Baysox game at 2 p.m. and DC Padres game at 4:30 p.m.
For more information about the DC Padres visit .
The Archdiocese of Washington is home to over 620,000 Catholics, 139 parishes and 96 Catholic schools, located in Washington, DC, and five Maryland counties: Calvert, Charles, Montgomery, Prince George’s and St. Mary’s.
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