The Fish House

Shelley Yates, right, celebrates after learning the team name she suggested was chosen as the name for Pensacola’s new Double-A baseball franchise by team owner Quint Studer, left. The new team will be called the Pensacola Blue Wahoos. / Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com

Jason Blakeney

Balloons and confetti dropped from the ceiling as streamers flew and students cheered wildly.

That’s how Cordova Park Elementary celebrated the selection of the Blue Wahoos as the name for Pensacola’s new Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds on Monday.

Shelley Yates, marketing director at the Fish House and Atlas Oyster House in downtown Pensacola, submitted the winning name for the News Journal’s Name the Team competition.

“I thought (Blue Wahoos) would be really fun because it has great long-term marketability, it’s fun to say, you can chant it and it has a bunch of long-term possibilities,” Yates said. “Wahoo’s delicious. It’s fun to catch. It’s a ferocious predator of the seas. So I thought it would be a lot of fun and a great name for Pensacola.”

Cordova Park was chosen as the venue for the announcement of the winner after more than 3,200 votes were cast at pnj.com and at area Wendy’s locations.

Team owner Quint Studer announced that the Blue Wahoos name was chosen over five other final possibilities — the Aviators, Mullets, Redbones, Salty Dogs and Loggerheads. The final tally was not announced, and team officials had input into the decision.

Each of the six people whose submissions made the final cut attended the Cordova Park rally, causing Studer to have mixed emotions.

“I didn’t want to see people disappointed when their name wasn’t selected,” Studer said. “One thing I’ve learned about Pensacola’s people is they feel very strongly about things. I was surprised how strongly people felt about certain names.”

Personally, Studer was partial to Mullets.

“It’s very unique and very close to our local ties,” he said. “I was picturing baseball caps with little mullet hairstyles underneath them, and you could have sold a ton of merchandise, a ton of Mullets merchandise. I liked Mullets.”

But after receiving many emotional letters against the name from people who thought Mullets had a negative connotation, Studer changed his mind.

Cordova Park students composed cheers and made signs in support of one of the mascots. The school was decorated with posters encouraging classmates to vote.

For the students, it was more than a chance to help announce a baseball team. It was educational, a chance to learn how to work as a team.

“They’ve been working really hard and having a lot of fun making the posters and doing the cheers and that sort of thing,” Cordova Park Principal Aggie Bauer said. “They’ve had a really good time with this. We were glad to be a part of it. The students came up with their ideas on their own.

“The teachers didn’t create these cheers for them. The kids were doing them at recess, and the parents said kids were working on their posters at home over the weekend,” she said.

Susan Godwin’s fifth-grade class was especially excited about the name announced for Pensacola’s new team, which will call the Community Maritime Park home for the 2012 season. The class represented Blue Wahoos during a cheer-off competition before the official announcement.

“It’s awesome,” 11-year-old Christian Richardson said of the new name. “I yelled ‘Blue Wahoos!’ (when the name was announced) and I was happy, just happy.”

The Blue Wahoos organization now moves on to the next phase in building its franchise.

Logos will be designed by Plan B Branding, based in San Diego.

After a color scheme and logo are chosen, the team will submit the package for approval by Minor League Baseball and Major League Baseball.

Team President Bruce Baldwin said the process could take about a month.

“Typically, there’s between 20 and 30 iterations of what a Blue Wahoo logo would look like, and once we get that developed with a coloring system, we have to get it vetted,” Baldwin said. “The Florida Marlins have got a fish, too, so we have to be careful about that.”