Wilson’s rich baseball history was celebrated Monday night, Nov. 17, at the 50th Wilson Hot Stove banquet, just as a new chapter has begun.
The Wilson Warbirds, the erstwhile Carolina Mudcats who will begin play in the Class A Carolina League this April, were prominent in the program, held for the first time in the First Baptist Church assembly hall ,that clocked in under 150 minutes. The Wilson Tobs summer collegiate franchise and star catcher Chase Waddell was feted for their first Coastal Plain League championship last summer while the program was dedicated to the memories of three North Carolina Baseball Museum board members who have died recently—Keith Barnes, Gilbert Ferrell and Stanley Friedman.
Barnes, who was the museum board president at the time of his death in April, was also awarded posthumously the museum’s Lifetime Achievement award that was accepted by his wife, Gail, and son, Will.
Two high-profile members of the University of North Carolina baseball team, Hunter Stokely of Wilson and All-America first-team pitcher Jake Knapp, were accompanied by Tar Heels head coach Scott Forbes to accept two major awards in the longest-running Hot Stove get-together in the state. The Wilson Hot Stove was formed in 1975 and the first banquet the following year featured St. Louis Cardinals hall-of-famer Stan Musial as the featured guest, a fact noted by Warbirds broadcaster Chris Edwards before the final segment in which he interviewed Nick Stanley, the Mudcats manager the past two summers and probably the Warbirds’ first manager this season.
The Warbirds, who will play in a downtown stadium currently under construction, were represented by local team officials, including president Joe Riccuitti and general manager David Lawrence, but also Stanley and Tom Flanagan, who heads the Milwaukee Brewers minor league system.
Stanley pointed to the recent history of the Mudcats with regard to on-field success as well as sending players to the Brewers as a positive omen for the Warbirds in Wilson.
“We’re going to have an exciting team if history has shown us anything,” Stanley said.
While the Warbirds are coming to town, the Tobs are taking off. An original Coastal Plain League franchise, the Tobs’ lease for Fleming Stadium was not renewed by the City of Wilson. Team general manager/minority owner Mike Bell confirmed during his remarks the team will play in Smithfield and keep the Tobs name and therefore the club’s connection to its city of birth.
The bigger focus was on the Tobs’ accomplishments last summer, winning their last 13 games to capture the CPL’s Petitt Cup championship for the first time in 29 years. Bell recalled a meeting he had with head coach Ted Bergquist late in the season about how the talent on the roster was good enough to win it all, if the players would buy in. A team meeting ensued and the Tobs didn’t lose again, sweeping the Forest City Owls in the championship series. The 10-9 win in game 2 in Forest City came after trailing 9-1 with Waddell’s dramatic three-run double the decisive blow.
“It’s only fitting that it was the local hometown kid who knows what it means to be from Wilson,” Bell said.
Waddell, who was an All-Conference Carolinas and All-Southeast Region pick for Barton College last spring, was a star on local diamonds from the time he helped his Wilson City Little League team win a state championship as well as the Tournament of State Champions. He collected his second career Clint Faris Award as the top amateur player in the Wilson area after getting it as a Hunt High senior four years ago.
New Barton baseball coach Matt Padgett humorously noted that his place in the speakers lineup after Waddell was “not a good situation.” Padgett was rewarded with a hat from the 2003 Carolina Mudcats team by NCBM board member and avid baseball memorabilist Ted Brzeczek. Padgett played for the Double-A Southern League champion Mudcats that season.
The Tobs were honored with the Charles H. “Red” Barrett Special Achievement distinction for their championship season and first-class community work throughout their 29 years in Wilson.
The recipient of the Trot Nixon “Gamer” Award, Stokely is another former Wilson City Little League and high school star who overcame an injury that wiped out his senior season at UNC in 2024. He returned as a graduate student to earn All-Atlantic Coast Conference first-team honors at first base for the Tar Heels. Knapp also missed the 2024 season with an injury but came back this past season to go 14-0 and take home the Gaylord Perry Amateur Pitching Award 41 years after another Tar Heels ace, Scott Bankhead, received the first one.
Another throwback award was N.C. Baseball Museum co-founder Kent Montgomery earning the Willis Hackney Award, which he also won at the first Hot Stove banquet in 1976 for his contributions to the sport of baseball in the community.
Legendary high school coach Doyle Whitfield was saluted by board member Princie Evans King with the Clyde King Excellence in Coaching award named for her late father and New York Yankees coach, manager, scout and executive. Whitfield, who was inducted into the North Carolina High School Athletic Association in August, coached and taught at Southern Wayne High for 30 years, winning the 1985 state 4-A title.
Wilson fireman William “Reese” Knight picked up the Eunice Sasser Award as the year’s top umpire in the Eastern Plains Athletic Association by assigner and NCBM board member Babe Allen.
Memories of Friedman and Ferrell were delivered by Milo Gibbs and Charlie Bedgood, respectively. Bedgood noted Ferrell’s calm demeanor didn’t change his toughness as a coach, although he said that Ferrell’s fairness as Fike athletic director meant his baseball players were the last ones to get new uniforms.
“As a teacher, mentor and coach, he knew how to use that whip but he also knew how to love you when that whip wasn’t going to work,” Bedgood said.
Barnes’ absence at the lectern was conspicuous as he was an annual presence at the Hot Stove banquet as well as the NCBM’s Celebrity Golf Tournament. Lovingly eulogized by his friend, Rev. Bobby White, Barnes is the 10th person to be given the Lifetime Achievement, a situation that White said Barnes would find humorous given his current situation.
The memories of Barnes and all the others who have helped the Wilson Hot Stove reach half a century will fuel the next half century as a new baseball era in Wilson begins.