Diamondback Eric Byrnes married a Pad Squadder!

by jbox on Mar 7, 2008 10:54 AM PST in News Comment 10 comments

I came across this article about the Diamondbacks Eric Byrnes. It says that he married a Padres community relations person. Isn't Gaslamp Ball supposed to have inside sources that should have told us about this like months or years ago? Anyway, I could smell the B.S. from a mile away. Don't try to make the job sound more sophisticated than it is! Community Relations? Please. He married a t-shirt throwing, hand clapping, blogger teasing Pad Squadder and he's embarrassed by it! He's embarrassed by my dream.

I did some research and confirmed that Tarah Byrnes is really Pad Squad Tarah from back in 2001. She's also Miss California 2002.

Article from 2002:

Last year at the Miss Greater San Diego pageant, one of her fellow competitors was a member of the San Diego Padres' "Pad Squad" and recommended it to Peters. "I thought, 'What an awesome job!'" Peters recalled. "I'm a lifelong baseball fan and I love the Padres, so I sent in my resume and had an interview. The rest is history."

San Diego Padres employee Tarah Peters was crowned Miss California USA last September.

Dex remembers her real well, he remembers how she sashayed around the ballpark, how she flipped her long golden hair, how she smelled of tangerines and hibiscus. I only kind of remember her. I really hated the Pad Squad back then, they were so annoying.

I did some research to find out how this unholy union happened. Tarah is quoted as saying she doesn't date athletes and that the Diamondbacks are "cocky". Then how did this happen? Just goes to show, you can't trust the Pad Squad. The Pad Squad tells me all the time "eww gross, we don't date bloggers!" Yet they can bend rules when they want to, when it's convenient for them. I think I'm starting to sour on the Pad Squad again.

Here's the saccharine story about how they met. It's so sickeningly sweet that it gives me a tooth ache.

D-Backs' surfer dude catches a wave of adoring fans and, now, a wife

Perfect match

Tarah had been wary of dating athletes. Byrnes changed her mind.

She was working in the San Diego Padres' community-relations department when a client insisted that she go look for a little boy with whom she had formed a bond. The boy was somewhere in the ballpark.

Tarah found him sitting with Byrnes, who had just been called up from Triple-A ball to play for the Oakland A's. The two were chewing gum and swinging their legs.

It was a setup. And it worked.

"We've talked every day since then," Tarah, 27, says. "He was such a breath of fresh air. He's on standard a positive person. He's just a wonderful guy."

The two dated for seven years. Given Byrnes' profession, much of the courtship was long-distance.

"It wasn't traditional, but I don't believe Eric and I are, in a lot of ways," she says. "It took me a long time to get that he wasn't dating a new girl in a new port. His character is above it."

The two were married late last year in front of 200 guests at California's romantic Half Moon Bay.

But Byrnes insists he isn't romantic. For a partner, he says he first needed a friend. Why would he send a friend flowers and chocolate?

Tarah begs to differ. She says Byrnes shows his romantic side in his own way. When he does, it's even more meaningful.

She remembers receiving fresh floral bouquets from Byrnes every day she was at the Miss USA competition. Tarah, a tall, slender blonde, was crowned Miss California in 2002 and finished as a Miss USA semifinalist.

The two say they are still honeymooning.

"Things have never changed," Byrnes says of dating, becoming engaged and marrying Tarah. "That's why it's been such a great relationship for us."

Tarah tries to pinpoint her husband's most attractive feature, other than his handsomeness: "It's an energy, a magnetism. . . . There's something real. . . . You burn calories just being in the same room with him."

Look at how happy they are playing grabass in their wedding photos. Somebody crack the password to their wedding website. I already tried "traitortoyourteam".

Tarah Byrnes pictures via RightFielders: