Sports Editor

Five games into the Southeastern Professional Baseball League and the Pensacola Pelicans are sitting on top of the standings.

Pensacola rallied on Wednesday night to beat the Montgomery Wings 9-8. The Pelicans scored five runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to take the win.

Baton Rouge is in second place with a 3-1 record.

Selma and Americus are tied for third, while Montgomery and Ozark sit at the bottom of the standings, the Wings with a 1-4 record and the Patriots winless in five outings.

The new league seems to have caught on with the fans, as crowds of 2,000-plus attended home openers in Selma, Ozark, and Pensacola last weekend. The Wings, which led the All-American League in attendance last season, will look to equal those numbers tonight in their home opener against Selma. Montgomery’s lone win came over Baton Rouge.

On opening night in Pensacola, fans were turned away at the gate by the hundreds as those lucky enough to get a seat watched the Pelicans down Montgomery 8-7. The gulf city hasn’t had a pro baseball team to call its own since 1962 when Alabama-Florida League Senators played there.

General Manager David Angeron is looking to bring in bleachers to go along the right-field wall of Pirate Field, home to the Pensacola Junior College Pirates’ baseball team.

"We had a bit of a problem with tickets, but it was a good problem," Angeron told the Pensacola News-Journal on Tuesday night. "This is the first of 36 games. It’ll smooth out."

Along with Montgomery taking on Selma tonight, Baton Rouge will be at Ozark and Pensacola at Americus.