Blue Wahoos Stadium

• Name: Blue Wahoos Stadium
• GPS-able Address: 351 West Cedar Street, Pensacola, FL 32502
• Ballpark Owner: City of Pensacola
• Architects: Populous; Bullock Tice; SMB Architecture
• Groundbreaking: 9/17/2009
• Minor League Baseball Teams: Pensacola Blue Wahoos (AA) 2012-present
• Class/League History: AA/Southern League 2022-present; AA/Double-A South 2021; AA/Southern League 2012-2020
• First Professional Baseball Game: 4/5/2012; stadium debut of Class AA Blue Wahoos
• Others Playing or Operating Here: None
• Previous Ballpark Names: Maritime Park Stadium 2012-2015
• LF: 342 CF: 400 RF: 335
• Seats: 3,746
• Stated Capacity: 5,038
• House Baseball/Softball Record Attendance (as currently configured): 5,038, multiple (cap)

Blue Wahoos Stadium, Pensacola, FL, is the home of the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, the Miami Marlins' Double-A Southern League farm team. The stadium went to artificial turf before the 2022 season - the same type as in the Marlins' ballpark.

Opened in 2012, it thoroughly impressed the owner of the Wahoos' then-parent Cincinnati Reds, Bob Castellini, on his initial walk-through: "This is over the top, I can't believe it. What a great job everyone has done. Everyone should be real proud."

The Pensacola Bay view enhances the Populous-designed ballpark's beauty, but its open-air design can let the Florida sun scorch. Originally planned to hold 3,500 for the Pensacola Pelicans of the independent American Association, it was retooled when Quint Studer sold that club to acquire a Double-A franchise.

However, it remains a small yet quite successful ballpark. Standards in place at the time called for 6,000 capacity in Double-A. The club avoided putting a number on it until it actually opened, which at least for professional games requires reporting attendance in the box score. That figure is apparently an attendance cap, with the Wahoos having reported 5,038 countless times and never any number above that. The figure is the smallest house record among playpens currently hosting Double-A baseball.

The team and the public-private non-profit agency that owns the stadium, Community Maritime Park Associates, were supposed to name it jointly. When they couldn't agree, CMPA named it for its larger long-term project: the multi-use waterfront Community Maritime Park, now known as the Vince J. Whibbs, Sr. Community Maritime Park. However, "Community Maritime Park" appeared only on one small plaque near the ballpark entrance even as the team's website referred to the ballpark as "Blue Wahoos Park". The local newspaper didn't use either name, instead referring to "the Pensacola bayfront stadium" in non-title case. That nearly stuck, appearing on at least one piece of merchandise - a jigsaw puzzle - and on its 2012 Stadium of the Year trophy as "Pensacola Bayfront Stadium at Community Maritime Park". As of February 28, 2023, "Pensacola Bayfront Stadium" also results from entering the phrase "Pensacola baseball" or "Pensacola baseball stadium" - without the quotation marks - in GoogleMaps.[1]

The waterfront park and the ballpark originated as separate ideas, in that order. Politics eventually melded them, along with a maritime museum then being championed by retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral John H. "Jack" Fetterman. The stadium is clearly the anchor, but the park also includes a conference center, a public marina, and an amphitheater. Although it has a "Museum Drive", no maritime museum has yet been built.

The stadium was the first structure built as part of the maritime park, and the above-listed groundbreaking date is seen as that of both - even though the stadium didn't open for more than two and a half years. While it would be easy to assume the ballpark was built for the Wahoos, since they are its only pro baseball team ever, Studer in fact still owned the independent Pensacola Pelicans when he conceived the project. The sudden availability of an affiliated team in a league into which Pensacola would geographically fit thus changed the course of Florida panhandle baseball history, as Studer sold his Pelicans to a group that moved it to Amarillo, TX, and bought the SL's Carolina Mudcats to move them to Pensacola.

Fetterman and Whibbs were both instrumental in creating the community park. Fetterman, who became known as the Navy's "ethics admiral" in the wake of the 1991 Tailhook scandal, was spearheading the project when he died in March 2006. Whibbs, who was previously Pensacola's longest-serving mayor (1978-1991), succeeded him but died the following May.

In 2015, CMPA agreed to the Blue Wahoos' second offer to buy out its share of the stadium naming rights. The team then officially dubbed its playpen Blue Wahoos Stadium. The playing field was also named, separately and without permanent signage, Admiral Fetterman Field. Despite the earlier tug-of-war, newspaper coverage of that naming-rights sale suggested the stadium had gone its first four years without any name.[2] The city website[3], as well as the team's, now uses Blue Wahoos Stadium, although outdated or inaccurate monikers remain in many online sources.

Also in 2015, after professional golfer and Pensacola native Bubba Watson purchased a share of the Blue Wahoos, the ballpark's restaurant was renamed "Bubba's Sand Trap" in his honor.