Reagan said, Hey, guys, but guess what?

We've got a chance.

He was my fraternity circle of about 200 people.

Hospice communities of healthy environments.

Trust me, she lived in Traficant for four years.

I really felt for a lot of reasons I felt, but I didn't have the guts to stand.

Over the past decade and a half, Pensacola has undergone a major transformation, and one of the key ingredients has been the construction of a beautiful waterfront stadium that is home to the minor league baseball team, the Pensacola Blue Wahoos esteemed writer and journalist Bill Vilona is out with a new book entitled Living the Wahoos Life.

The book is more than box scores and baseball stories.

It's an account of how baseball kickstarted a city into a new way of thinking.

Vilona spent nearly four decades as a sportswriter for the Pensacola News Journal and for the Gannett USA Today Network.

He is a member of the Pensacola Sports Association Hall of Fame and the UW Athletics Hall of Fame.

We welcome Bill Vilona onto the conversation.

Thank you so much for being here.

Jeff Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure to be able to share my thoughts on this book and what a labor of love it was.

Well, how did the project come about?

Well, it came about after the 2021 season, which was our first season as a miami Marlins affiliate.

Our team owner, Quint Studer, came to me and said he wanted to do a book chronicling the ten year history.

The following season was going to be the ten year anniversary.

And so during the 2022 season, I was writing the book and finished it right When we got into the championship series, we won the championship.

So we added a chapter to it and then the book was completed.

But then, as I tell everybody, writing a book is only one half of making a book.

Second part is the difficult part.

Publishing the book, we ran into some some issues, some circumstances, a little bit of a roller coaster ride.

But I am so grateful for the work that that Quint and our team president Jonathan Griffith did in making this book happen.

The back of the book.

The publishing company is the Gratitude Group, which is Quinn's company that he's published a lot of books through that company.

I am glad that I am gratified that this happened because I was a little worried at times that we going to see it.

And I'm so grateful that it's there and it's a keepsake for the first ten years of the of the team.

And the forward is by a guy of few people may know who a guy named Bubba Watson right.

Is somewhat famous or somewhat famous.

And he was gracious enough to do the foreword and it was interesting to get his thoughts.

He brings a different perspective.

I don't think people know this.

Bubba was, as a kid, a big baseball fan and loved to play baseball.

That was his dream to be part of a baseball team.

His hero was Don Mattingly, who ironically became the manager of the Miami Marlins after his great career with the New York Yankees.

Bubba wanted to be a baseball player, but golf was also part of his life that worked out well for him.

Yeah, he probably did.

Okay.

I'd say it was a good choice.

Yeah, a couple of masters.

Didn't you have him come out and throw the pitch out wearing his green jacket?

Actually, we did.

And for the first time it happened is when Quint approached him about possibly doing something with the Blue Wahoos, and he later became the.

The team owner, which is a team investor, that it's part of this book and how that happened.

And yeah, in fact Quint And it's in this book.

Quint And Bubba did a dunk tank, believe it or not, before a game.

They were in front of the stadium and they created a dunk tank and both of them were good sports about it.

And so Bubba I think had had a lot of fun doing it.

But yeah, he's been a big part of our team because when he post something on Instagram or any of his social media outlets, when you have over a million plus followers like he does, it's it resonates and it's it's been a big, big part of of who we are to have him as part of our team.

Well start from the beginning.

Sort of how Quint Studer brought baseball to Pensacola because it started with the Pensacola Pelicans, correct?

It did.

In fact, not too far from where we sit, it happened one night at Pensacola State College Baseball Field.

Quint and his wife Richie and their family on a whim, just decided to attend.

They had heard about this new independent league team called the Pelicans.

They came to the game and I never forget Quint's quote about it was it was like this picture out of Life magazine.

And for people who are around long enough like myself to know Life magazine, they used to have these beautiful portraits on the cover of the magazine.

It was a large magazine, and Quint called it kind of a slice of Americana.

And so from there he became interested.

He learned that the team was for sale.

One thing led to another.

He.

He went on a journey to get the pelicans, get them into another league.

He had to spend a ton of money.

He and Richie, originally at Pensacola State College, were providing food and rearranging the chairs.

They did everything Richie did the uniforms, I mean everything.

And so the following year, Jim Spooner was the coach, head coach then at the University of West Florida, and he invited the Quint and the Pelicans to use their field, which was renamed Pelican Park in the summer.

And then Quint did a lot of improvements, which led in 2011 to UW F hosting an NCAA regional, which catapulted him to the the Division two World Series.

They wanted in their only time participating in the NCAA Division two College World Series so that is the impact that that part of it made.

But that's when Quint began to think about a stadium downtown.

And then in 22,006, they had a vote.

It passed.

But the amazing thing about this was it wasn't until six years later that the stadium opened and again, a lot of twists and turns, a roller coaster ride, a lot of things.

I remember many people telling me that we're in baseball.

No other owner that they can imagine anybody going through what Quint and Richie Studer did to get this team, to get this stadium, and then even in this book, I remember interviewing Quint about it and he said, You know, if I had to do it over again, I'm not sure I would have done it.

But obviously it was a transformational happening for Pensacola and nothing I have covered in my time and I'm talking about the Super Bowl Masters World Cup Olympics, it nothing compares quite to this story because Pensacola, as you know, at that time, downtown was was kind of deserted at night.

And it didn't have a whole lot going on.

It certainly didn't have residential and anything going on that even resembled people wanting to build something downtown.

Right.

And I remember when the stadium was being built, Quince said to me, Chris, I was working at the News-Journal at the time.

He said, You know, I, I really hope this can this can work.

And he brought in a firm from Populous, which does a lot of stadiums, one of them being PNC Park and Pittsburgh, where I'm from, and I'm familiar with that.

They came in and Quint asked them, Do you guys really think this is going to work?

And they looked at him and said, Well, what are you talking about?

Why wouldn't it work?

I mean, you got this beautiful waterfront property, the Bay, the Gulf of Mexico.

I mean, what was it?

It's, of course it's going to work.

So he got confidence from that.

And and the stadium, of course, has been transformational for Pensacola.

Beyond baseball, the beauty of this story is it's not a it's not so much about baseball.

It's what it's meant to Pensacola.

It's given us a new identity.

Right.

And the ignition to do other things, which you've now seen.

Yeah.

You know, I think back to that time and you're right, there was some controversy and there was some pushback and there were naysayers.

It's not going to work.

You're spending too much money.

You wouldn't ever think about that.

Now if you go sit in a stadium.

No, I mean, and I I've been to a lot of places.

I've been a lot of stadiums and still is just while I sit there and I look at the at the view and just and the quality of everything, it's just it's amazing.

Well, great story that I can tell.

Two years ago, the Miami Marlins owner Bruce Sherman visited our stadium and he had never been to Pensacola.

And so he we took him up to the Hancock level and he just stopped and he looked out and he said, Wow, yeah.

And this is a man that has quite a bit of money, obviously, to be a an owner of a major League baseball team.

And he said, I'm just going to sit here for a while.

And he sat by himself and we let him go.

And he just he just sat and it was a beautiful day.

And he looked out over that day.

And, you know, there isn't there isn't anything like this in the minor leagues.

And there's only one stadium, San Francisco is on the water that has this kind of a beauty to it.

And he was amazed.

And so that was a powerful moment.

And it really reinforced to everyone, hey, this is this is special.

Every time somebody comes to our ballpark for the first time and I take them up to that level to look out, they just stand in awe.

I mean, it really is something that that we have.

It's a treasure and we're so lucky.

We really are.

And, you know, the other thing that I like about it and you can expand on this more, but the fact that it's it's become a place that engages other activities, I know for a long a longer period of for a period of time, rather, the University of West Florida had the football games there, but just all the youth activities and the other community activities.

How important do you think that aspect is?

Vital.

I mean, we would not be able to have a full time staff.

Most minor league teams, they're very seasonal except for a couple front office employees were employed year round because of the events that we have.

We have an events director, Shannon Hanna, who I work with very closely.

She does an amazing job of booking events year round, everything from Christmas parties to a wedding reception or to a team wanting to just take batting practice.

Or we've had Marine, the Marine Corps, the US Marine Corps has come in there too, to have a birthday celebration of the Marines anniversary.

And just so many things.

We we've done everything from Halloween parties to movie nights and she's booked all these events and it keeps this stadium going year round, which is vital.

That was Quint's intention.

He did not want just a 69 baseball games being played there.

He wanted it to be year round.

And that's what we've made it.

Talk a little bit about how he got the Wahoos.

We went from the Pelicans to the Wahoos and there there was a lot that he had to go through and he had to spend a lot of money, not just buying the team to begin with, but having to pay the Bay Bears money and all kinds of stuff.

Expand on that.

Well, when the process began, Mobile had an exclusivity.

The Mobile Bay Bears had an exclusivity agreement with Major League and Minor League Baseball saying that no team within I think it was 100 miles of mobile, maybe it was even further could could built could put a team with smart on their part.

That was the first major hurdle that Quint had to go through because if Mobile would have said no way, then this probably wouldn't happen.

He developed a relationship with the mobile owner at the time, Bill Shanahan and his group and bill.

Remember, Quinn says Bill told him one day, Look, when I wouldn't do this for anybody, I'm going to do it for you.

So they negotiated a fee that was far less than it could have been.

And we had the ability now to bring a team in.

Well, then he had to get permission from the Southern League.

Our stadium wasn't going to be minimum size of 6000.

It was only going to be 5000.

We had to get clearance from that.

We had to pay a fee.

We had to pay a transfer fee.

He then had to go to the Carolina Mudcats, who were the Cincinnati Reds affiliate at time in a town on Zebulon, North Carolina, right outside of Raleigh.

They want the Reds wanted to move, so we were able to get them.

But in doing so, we had to pay a fee then.

And then he had to put a team in like a replacement team in the Carolina League so that Zebulon didn't have an empty stadium.

Wow.

All of this when you say all with all this together, it was over $14 million, which is what he had to do just to get the team here.

Wow.

And that doesn't include now we have to build a stadium, right?

Right.

Which he kicked in 3 million.

A lot of fans.

Actually.

I could talk a little bit about it for folks who don't know.

So initially we were with the Reds, affiliated with the Reds, then the twins, Minnesota Twins, I believe, and now the Miami Marlins.

How does that whole process work?

What's changed?

It's changed dramatically.

Originally, when we started in 2012 as a Reds affiliate, these contracts or agreements were renewed every 3 to 5 years after the second go around with the Reds, Quin thought, Let's look around and see what's out there.

There were other teams interested in coming here and it wasn't that we had a bad relationship, we had a good relationship with the Reds.

Quint Just thought, well, maybe we'll see what's what else is out there and change might be good.

The twins come in in 2019.

That was the only season they played here, but that team had over 20 players reached the major leagues.

That was an amazing amount of talent for that one season.

What the Twins did, in addition to being our affiliate, was give us advice on how to redo, how to revitalize the locker room.

They were the ones who suggested, let's put this netting.

If you're going to put netting, all the way down to the end of the field, which they endorsed, we want it in front of the dugout.

These dugouts are too close to home plate.

And even though these are professional baseball players with incredibly quick reflexes, balls are rocketing into this dugout like a rocket.

So they said, can you put the netting in front?

So these are some of the things the twins did.

They helped us with the design of the clubhouse that's now exist.

They wanted the players to have a dining room, a separate part from the from the areas where their change in all of that was done that year.

The other genius thing that was done by Quint's wife, Richie, who had never been in a baseball clubhouse, she walked in there the first time she turns their head, there's the entrance to the bathroom.

She said, We got we got to put a wall up.

But we we compromised and we put three lockers, three official lot, three full size lockers.

Now, when you walk in there, you do not know the bathrooms on the other side.

It's genius.

I mean, it really was an amazing which is why it's so important to have people that maybe don't have any past association with baseball or sports to walk in and see something.

That's what she saw in that clubhouse is is so nice now, because when you walk in there, you don't know that the bathroom entrance is on the other side of those lockers.

And how did how did the Marlins relationship come about?

Well, when after COVID and we didn't play at all in 2020, major League Baseball did a mass overhaul.

See, Major League Baseball had this sort of a long standing agreement with minor league baseball was two separate entities.

Major League Baseball decided that they were going to take over minor league baseball to grow the game even better, which they've done.

So part of that was they wanted to see with affiliations who could we get closer to each other?

Because at that time some teams were way all over the place with their affiliates.

Miami was in Can well, they had a Phillies affiliation in New Orleans, then another one that was going to happen in Kansas, too far away from Miami, Jacksonville said, We will be the triple-A affiliate of Miami.

So they pushed that.

Miami, the Marlins agreed to that, and then they pushed Pensacola to be the Double-A.

And it's been wonderful because think about this.

Now we're part of a a team that's in Florida.

The triple-A team is in Jacksonville.

The single one of the single-A teams is in Jupiter, where Miami trains.

So three of the four Marlins affiliates are right in the same state.

The other part of it was Clint wanted to buy the team in Beloit, Wisconsin, that was on the chopping block to be eliminated when this all got restructured because they had an old stadium really like a not even a wasn't even a high school level stadium, to be honest.

Wow.

Clint wanted to put a stadium in Beloit, which he did through the help of an investor there by the name of Diane Hendricks, who owns ABC Supply.

The stadium gets built.

The Marlins needed at a high a level their second a level affiliate they joined in Beloit.

So now we have a partnership with Beloit with us the Marlins in Miami Jacksonville.

So it's it's really a nice synergy that that has developed between all of these teams that are connected to one main organization that's phenomenal.

Talk a little bit about some of the players who have been through the organization and the ones that have gone on to the big leagues.

Well, the most, you know, if you when you start the first season or the 2020, the 2012 season, we had shortstop Didi Gregorius, who spoke seven different languages, go goes on to the New York Yankees, helps them in the playoffs that year.

Phenomenal talent.

I thought he might even have a longer career than he did, but just a phenomenal talent that year we also had a combined no hitter thrown, and the only time a no hitter was has been thrown in Blue Wahoos Stadium.

That happened then in the second half of the season, Billy Hamilton, who grew up in rural Mississippi, not too far from Pensacola, but 3 hours, he's on path to set them the minor League baseball stolen base record when he gets here.

And of course, he sets the record, it becomes a national story.

And Billy Hamilton helped catapult the Blue Wahoos even further.

So that first year was like Blockbuster.

We had all these all this great all these great things happening.

2017, we have a pitcher from the Reds organization by the name of Tyler O'Malley, throws a perfect game against the Mobile Bay Bears, ironically, right in Mobile in Hank Aaron Stadium, first time in a half century.

It had been done in the southern League.

And really, I'll be honest, Jeff, I don't think we'll ever see it again.

It was a just a magical night.

First of all, they don't like to let pitchers go Starting pitchers go longer than five innings.

He goes all nine through less than 100 through less than 80 pitches.

I think that's how sharp he was.

Unbelievable performance that night.

And then he went on to make his major league debut and is having a good career in the big leagues.

But that was an unforgettable moment, you know, And that, again, that help that helped catapult the Blue Wahoos name.

And so then we also won the championship that year.

The hurricane was out in the Gulf.

They knew that they were only going to be able to play one round of the playoffs.

We beat Jacksonville.

Ironically, they were called the Suns back then.

We win, we win the championship.

That was the first time the Blue Wahoos had won any kind of a trophy that was special.

And then all these other things happened.

Of course, 19 like I mentioned, the twins, and we come a marlins affiliate.

We won the Southern League championship.

The next greatest player that I've ever seen will maybe the certainly the youngest greatest player that I've seen.

Uri Perez, who was only 18 years old when he made his debut in 2022 for the Blue Wahoos unbelief, movable towel and six foot seven.

Now he's a part of the Miami Marlins starting rotation Urie effortlessly could throw a baseball better than anybody I've ever seen.

And and it was going 101 102 miles an hour.

And I don't know if anybody's ever been around of somebody that's throwing a baseball, honey.

It hits a catcher's glove like a shotgun blast and you really don't like I know people that have now, they've have cameras that umpires wear and they see the ball coming in.

And you think, how does a hitter even stand up in that year?

He did this effortlessly.

He was phenomenal.

And we've had Luis Arraez, who's now a marlins star.

He was a twins prospect when he was here in 2019.

He then he goes on to win the American League and the National League batting championship in two different years, never been done before.

He played for the Blue Wahoos.

So we've had so much talent here that it's it's just so special to be part of it and chronicle it and not only on the field, but I think about like in the announcing booth with Tommy Thrall.

So he would go on to become the red team, right?

Tommy was here the first seven years and gets a call one day from the Reds saying, Hey, we're considering you for our broadcast job.

At the time, Marty Brennaman, who was an institution in Saint in Cincinnati, I mean, a legend, a Hall of Famer, was going to retire and Tommy auditioned.

And Tommy was terrific.

Not only did he do Boo Boo all his games, he did UW f events.

Tommy gets the job.

Then we get Chris Garagiola, who was Tommy's intern.

Chris The nephew or the grandson?

I should say, of legend.

Joe Garagiola Yeah.

Now Chris is right, the play by play announcer for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

So think about this.

Two announcers, two and Eric Green were our current broadcaster.

I know he's going to get to the big leagues as well.

So we're going to have three broadcasters make it to the big leagues.

It's it's in incredible.

It's amazing.

And for people who don't know, that's a huge deal.

If you're the voice of a of a major league team in a major market like is a huge deal.

You become an institution.

Absolutely become part of the fabric of the city.

No question.

And so, yeah, that's what Tommy's is now done.

And Chris, being the connected to the Garagiola family like he is, I mean, he's been an instant hit.

So it's it's it's unreal, the history really, with the blue wall.

It is It has been just a phenomenal scenario for the for the team to come in and the stadium and everything that has happened and the explosion of downtown, etc.. Having said all of that, as you look forward for the next few years, what do you what do you see on the horizon?

Well, I think we're going to make improvements to the stadium that we need to make.

We know that some of the stadium components are aging.

The one of the things Major League Baseball wants us to do is improve the visitor's locker room, which is a first priority.

We're going to expand that and make that much better than it is right now.

You also want another indoor batting cage.

Right now, we only have one.

It's adjacent to the Blue Wahoos clubhouse.

We're going to have to do another one because right now two teams are sharing that.

And it's a it's a challenge and it's a challenge even when we have college tournament or high school teams coming in and they want to use that.

So having to will be a will be good.

But the thing is, you have every one of these projects is not thousands, it's hundreds of thousands.

It's very expensive to do these things that Quint and Richie Stewart are so gracious to want to continue to make sure that this facility is the best they can possibly be.

And they're so committed to making the Blue Wahoos a standard in minor league baseball and which it is, and we're going to do it eventually.

We're going to have we're going to do more and more.

We probably will have to do a new video board soon.

All of these things cost a lot of money, but we'll make it happen.

And it's it's part of why the blue eyes are so special and we're so blessed to have owners ownership like we do.

No question.

So speaking of ownership, I mean, clearly, Quentin Ricci at the top of the board there, but you mentioned Bubba Watson earlier and also with Derrick Brooks.

I believe Derrick Brooks followed Bubba Watson as a co investor shortly after his retirement and getting inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Same thing.

Quint met with him and said, I really would like for you to to be part of the team.

And Derek has signed on and now we have one of the one of only 15 linebackers I think in NFL history that's ever been inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Happens to be from Pensacola and he's now co investor John List of world renowned economists from the University of Chicago is a co investor.

Dana Suskind, his wife who founded the early brain development program that we now try to enhance.

She's she's a co investor.

So this is part of why, you know, the Blue Wahoos are so special and so diverse and connected to so many different entities, some real star power, their business and sports, etc., where is the book available?

We're going to make it available for public sale on April 6th.

The original intention of this was to make sure the season ticket holders got it first because they are the most with our season ticket holders.

Jeff we wouldn't be able to do what we're doing.

They're the they're the backbone.

We have over 1800, I think, season ticket holders there.

I couldn't thank every one of them enough because that's a big part of why we are who we are.

They support the team every year.

Many of them have done it for all 12 seasons now, so they got the book first.

We're also giving it to our employees that have been our game day, employees that have worked there ten years, almost all of the season.

I do 65 of them.

We have an incredible staff.

We have an incredible front office staff, and we have an incredible gameday staff, of course, combined.

That's why we are who we are.

Congratulations on the book.

Thank you so much for having me.

My pleasure.

My absolute pleasure.

Living the Wahoos life is the name of the book.

Bill Bellona is the author and the foreword by two time masters champion Bubba Watson.

I would encourage you to pick it up and you can learn the entire story of how everything came about is fascinating, and especially if you're new to the area to be able to just kind of look back in the history and the evolution of how the Wahoos became what they are today.

And not only that, but how Pensacola has developed.

We greatly appreciate you watching this program.

And by the way, you can see this show and many more of our conversations on the PBS video app and the Sorry Dawgs conversations.

I'm Jeff Weeks.

Thank you so very much for hanging around with us.

I hope you enjoyed the program.

Take wonderful care of yourself.

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