John Appleyard: A Living Legend's Lifetime Deal

As the door opens to the Pensacola Blue Wahoos home radio booth, John Appleyard is greeted with well-earned praise.
"Where is the legend? There he is! How are you?" said Chris Garagiola, the Blue Wahoos lead play-by-play broadcaster, welcoming his Sunday radio partner to join on the opening series finale game April 14 at Blue Wahoos Stadium against the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp.
Mr. Appleyard is wearing the Blue Wahoos' road uniform jersey, the one with Pensacola embroidered across the chest. It has a throwback look. 
Mr. Appleyard's first foray into a baseball radio broadcast was in 1927.
Let that settle for a second.
He was 4-years-old. The radio was termed a crystal set, the ones from that era which looked like a small wood plank with a canister-size device atop. On the device were a collection of dials that made it capable of receiving nearby AM transmission signals.
It would be nearly 13 years later until FM signals made a debut.
"My dad put together the crystal set," Mr. Appleyard said. "That's when two Chicago stations began to carry Cubs baseball. We would all sit around the table with the listening cups on. 
"Of course, I was a fan from the first day. And I listened to Cubs baseball all my time there."
Mr. Appleyard later settled in Pensacola, where he founded The Appleyard Agency in 1959 as an advertising and marketing company. Back then, the city had its previous experience with professional affiliated baseball in the former Alabama-Florida League. 
All these years later, at 96-years-old, Mr. Appleyard is part of the Blue Wahoos radio broadcasts for each Sunday home game. A year ago, team owner Quint Studer signed Mr. Appleyard to a lifetime contract as a radio broadcaster.
"I'm honored to be asked to join the broadcaast team," Mr. Appleyard said at the time. "When you negotiate a contract at age 95, your biggest concern is parking and I have been assured I will have a good spot!"
He's been working the games since 2016. At Blue Wahoos Stadium, he sits in a cushy, office chair, surrounded with laptop computers, HD-monitors and a modern radio board on the table. A long, long way from that crystal set device his father assembled.
"It is fascinating, it really is," Mr. Appleyard said. "But the fundamentals are still the same. You have to know what you're going to say, you have to get an idea of what the players are doing.
"I think a good broadcaster is one where, no matter if it's the visiting team or the home team, they will not be upset at what you say."
Mr. Appleyard was asked years ago by his son, Dick Appleyard, and Studer about making a cameo in the radio booth one Sunday.
"I think it kinda started as a joke," Mr. Appleyard said, chuckling. "We came down here and they asked me to do it. Well, I go on and start talking with Tommy Thrall. And the team was flooded with phone calls.
"They were asking, 'Will I come back?' So I guess I did okay."
His Sunday visits in the booth reveal Mr. Appleyard's encyclopedic knowledge of baseball history. 
Listeners to Blue Wahoos broadcasts love hearing what Mr. Appleyard has to say. And with good reason. If he's not the oldest baseball voice in America, he's batting high in the starting lineup.
"You can ask him about something in the 1930's and he'll remember it like yesterday," said Dick Appleyard, laughing, who succeeded his father as president of Appleyard Agency. "Now, ask him about something yesterday and he might struggle to tell you."
Each Sunday is a new history lesson from Pensacola's resident expert on the Blue Wahoos broadcast. Be sure to tune in to hear the legacy continue throughout the 2019 season!