Pensacola Pelicans: 20 Years Of Baseball History In Pensacola

On a July night in 2002, Pensacola’s venture back into professional baseball began in the most unique way.

What’s happened since would defy logic.

Purely on a whim, Quint and Rishy Studer, then relative newcomers to Pensacola and Northwest Florida, toted some folding chairs and joined with two family members to check out a Pensacola Pelicans game at Pensacola State College, where the team arranged to play its first season in a fledging Independent League.

Pensacola had not seen any form of professional baseball since 1962, back when the Pensacola Senators played their final season as a member of the Class D Alabama-Florida League.

Forty years later, the Pelicans were formed. The Studers, both of whom grew up in the Chicago area, had never attended any kind of minor league baseball game.

“I romanticized about minor league baseball with Bull Durham and other movies, so you grow up thinking you know minor league baseball,” said Quint Studer, who grew up a Chicago White Sox fan and his wife a Brewers fan. “I did not know there was a difference between affiliated and Independent League baseball.”

The journey began that eventually led to the Pensacola Blue Wahoos. But the Pelicans legacy is what enabled the progression to become an affiliated Minor League team.

“If the Pelicans are not here, we don’t go to the game that night,” Studer said. “And if we don’t go to the game, I don’t buy the Pelicans, the Blue Wahoos never happen, and I don’t invest in downtown Pensacola.

“It all started with that one night.”

The Pelicans that night in 2002 were playing the Selma (Alabama) Cloverleafs as members of the once-six team Southeastern League.

“The left fielder from the Cloverleafs makes these great plays,” Studer said. “And we are in second row in these folding chairs. You had kids running around, families gathering. It was so neat. It reminded me of a Life Magazine pictorial.”

After being wowed by the experience, Quint woke up the next day to read in the Pensacola News Journal the Pelicans were being sold to a businessman from Destin.

“I said to Rishy, ‘Gee, I wish I would have known.’ I would have loved to get involved.”

Those became fateful words. A day later, the News Journal reported the Pensacola Pelicans sale had fallen through.

The team was in limbo again. Studer got involved. He called friend Mort O’Sullivan, managing partner of O’Sullivan and Creel, to examine the financial records.

Studer also made a plea — for Sullivan not to look too closely at the books.

“Mort, please don’t look too closely, okay?” Studer recalls asking. “I really want to buy this team.”

Studer was told he could have the team, provided he was willing to absorb $80,000 in debt. He wrote the first of what would be many checks. That initial purchase led to the Studers eventually bailing out two Independent League teams and investing double-digit millions from their own portfolio.

It began an uncharted course that would lead to the Pensacola Blue Wahoos and 2022 becoming the 20th year of professional baseball in Pensacola.

All of this history began from the Studers taking that one family night out.

The path to sold-out nights at Blue Wahoos Stadium was not an easy one.

Hours before his first game as Pelicans owner in 2002, Studer received a telephone call from the Montgomery Wings informing they were not coming to Pensacola to play. The Wings players were revolting after not receiving paychecks that season from their team owner.

Studer had hailed the game to fans as a second opening night and already paid for a fireworks display following the game at the PSC ballpark.

To make the game happen, he paid the travel costs, hotel and food for the Montgomery Wings to play in Pensacola.

“Here I am on TV talking about the game that night and not knowing if we are even going to play the game,” he recalled.

More problems ensued. When Quint and Rishy Studer arrived at PSC that night to begin setting up operations, there was a line of vendors, sponsors, business-owners, and league officials asking for money they claimed the Pelicans’ former owners still owed them.

“There were no records, so we literally just wrote people checks,” Studer said. “Anybody who showed up and said ‘You owe us money,’ we just trusted them.”

With only four teams left in the League (Selma, Montgomery, Baton Rouge, and Pensacola), a decision was made to end the season with a round-robin tournament to decide the league champion. Pensacola won. A photo of the dogpile celebration of players was part of the 2003 season program — the lone championship in Pelicans’ franchise history.

To make the operation work, Quint and Rishy did much of the labor at the stadium themselves.

They set up the folding chairs for fans prior to every game. They took care of the pizza deliveries and popped the popcorn. They pressed the t-shirts for the team store. They built the team a new batting cage.

In the lead-up for the 2003, his first full-time season as Pelicans owner, Studer met with the late Jim Spooner, who was then the University of West Florida baseball coach, along with former UWF athletic director Richard Berg. They advocated for the Pelicans to move to UWF for more seating, more expansive concessions and more room all the way around. Studer agreed.

He also committed $500,000 to revamp UWF’s ballpark with a left field party deck, hospitality suites constructed along the first base line, another deck behind third base and VIP chairback seats behind home plate. In exchange, the stadium would be known as Pelican Park for the Pelicans summer home schedule.

Studer arranged for Bernie Carbo, a member of the “Big Red Machine” for the Cincinnati Reds run in the 1970s to become the Pelicans manager. Former Reds pitcher Pedro Borbón was named pitching coach. The Pelicans now had name recognition.

The Pelicans thrived in Pensacola. They had a booster club formed. A small merchandise stand was built at Pelican Park, along with a kiosk at Cordova Mall. Pelicans gear became highly popular with the community.

Whether you were at a game or shopping in a grocery store, someone was wearing a Pelicans T-shirt or hat. At the games, the Studers began the fan experience quest that now exists with the Blue Wahoos. Anyone hired to work for the Pelicans had to be personable, willing to greet everyone with a smile and practice exemplary customer service.

On the field, players signed autographs before the game, then met with fans and signed more autographs after each home game.

While the Pelicans found success in their community, many of the teams they played against did not.

The Studers frequently found themselves covering the expenses of opposing teams to ensure the Pelicans would have a team to play against in front of their hometown fan base. Even then, instability constantly existed in their leagues.

The Southeastern League folded before the 2003 season, so the Pelicans joined the Central Baseball League. That league folded in 2005, and the Pelicans joined the American Association. While it was a high quality league, the American Association left much to be desired as a geographic fit, with opposing teams located as far as St. Paul, Minnesota, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and El Paso, Texas.

To alleviate the challenges of indy ball, the Studers pulled off a complicated business deal that resulted in the Blue Wahoos.

First, they purchased the Double-A Carolina Mudcats franchise, moving them to Pensacola and completed a deal to transfer the Pelicans franchise to Amarillo (becoming the Amarillo Sox). They also purchased the Class A Kinston Indians and moved them to Carolina, allowing the Mudcats franchise to continue and paid a hefty fee to the Mobile BayBears to join their geographic market.

With those deals complete, the stage was set for affiliated baseball to return to Pensacola in beautiful new Blue Wahoos Stadium in 2012. The accolades and success since in downtown Pensacola were all made possible thanks to the Pensacola Pelicans.