The Salt Line, Vol. 12: Ships, Skeeters, and a Baseball Team That Is Simply Being Bullied
Welcome back to The Salt Line — the only Gulf Coast news roundup written at a picnic table while something is definitely biting my ankles. Volume 12, baby. We’re practically an institution. A deeply unserious institution, but an institution nonetheless. Let’s get into it.
🐟 One Fish, Two Fish, Dead Fish, Blue Fish
Look, I want to be gentle here, but I also want to be honest: at some point you have to check on your friends. The Pensacola Blue Wahoos dropped Game 3 to the Chattanooga Lookouts 10-3, with the headline itself noting that someone named Ibarra “continues to torment” them. Continues. This is not a loss. This is a haunting. This man has apparently made tormenting a fish-themed Double-A ball club his entire personality, and honestly? Respect the commitment. The Wahoos are in a six-game series, which at this pace is less a baseball series and more a documentary about suffering. Someone check the dugout for a white flag.
🚢 Two Thousand Jobs, One Very Large Ask
A shipbuilding company is eyeing Pensacola for its headquarters and promising 2,000 new jobs — which sounds incredible, right up until you read that the city is seeking a $76 million grant to make it happen. So to summarize: we would like some jobs, please, and we would like someone else to pay for the factory. This is, structurally, the same pitch I used to ask my parents for a car in high school. It did not work then. I wish Pensacola better luck. The ships, presumably, will be built using a more conventional procurement process.
🅿️ The Parking Situation Has Reached the Point of Official Documentation
Gulf Shores has made a big change to beach parking for high-demand areas, with officials noting the updates were “developed in coordination with beach-area businesses to address long-term parking issues.” Long-term parking issues. I want to be clear: the long-term parking issue is that it’s a beautiful beach on the Gulf of Mexico in June and approximately 400,000 people all want to park in the same lot at 9 a.m. on a Saturday. That’s it. That’s the whole issue. I respect that they wrote it down, though. Very official. Very parking.
🦟 El Niño Did This, Apparently
Experts are blaming rising mosquito and pest populations across Northwest Florida on El Niño, which — and I mean this sincerely — is the most validating thing I have ever read. I have been personally victimized by this summer’s mosquito situation and I am relieved to know it has a name. El Niño. A weather phenomenon originating in the Pacific Ocean has personally arranged for something to bite me behind the left knee every single morning. The circle of life is enormous and it hates me specifically. Stock up on DEET. Consider a screened-in existence. The mosquitoes, unlike the Blue Wahoos’ pitching staff, are absolutely eating this season.
🏈 Foley Hosted a Football Tournament and Some Kids Were Very Good At It
Thompson won the Foley 7-on-7 title, with LeFlore and Saraland making deep runs against elite competition at the Foley Sports Complex in what sounds like an absolutely blistering two-day event held outside in Alabama in late June. Every single person involved — players, coaches, parents, the one guy running the scoreboard — deserves a trophy and a cold beverage. We salute you. Also Foley, somehow quietly becoming the sports infrastructure capital of the Alabama Gulf Coast, does it again.
🩸 This One’s Actually Important, So I’ll Be Brief
OneBlood needs O-negative and O-positive blood in Pensacola — it’s an emergency shortage. No jokes here. If you’ve got the type and the time, please go donate. Consider it your civic duty after spending all weekend at a beach that now has restructured parking. You’ll feel great about it. Better than the Blue Wahoos feel right now, almost certainly.
That’s your week, Gulf Coast. The mosquitoes are thriving, the fish are struggling, and somewhere a shipbuilder is circling Pensacola with very large blueprints and a very specific grant request. See you next week — assuming the skeeters don’t carry me off first.
— Sully