When Jesse Cole bought a summer baseball team in Savannah, Georgia in 2016, he had one goal in mind: Make baseball more fun. Now, six years and two Coastal Plains League Championship titles later, the Savannah Bananas sell out every home game, and joining the waitlist only gives you a chance at getting a ticket, as they often run out before later spots can get to them.
A massive draw the Bananas have is their “fans-first” policy that people notice as early as purchasing a ticket. For only $25, fans can enjoy unlimited classic ballpark snacks such as hot dogs, cheeseburgers, sodas, etc., and with each ticket being open seating, the only thing stopping someone from getting the seat they want is not getting there early enough.
Cheap tickets and cheap food are not the only reason fans come from all over the country to see the team, however. The Bananas are revolutionizing the sport of baseball with their own version, appropriately called “Banana Ball”. This game is essentially baseball, but with a few key twists that keep the game fun and engaging for both players and fans.
First, the game only lasts two hours, and not a second longer. A common complaint of modern baseball is the games take far too long, as nowadays your average baseball game will last more than three hours. In Banana Ball, if the two-hour time limit rolls around in the bottom of the eighth inning, then the game will end once the inning is over.
Second, if a fan catches a foul ball, the batter is out. This rule allows the fans to be even more involved with the game, and also provides quite a few hilarious moments when an unknowing fan is ejected from the game after catching a foul hit by a Bananas player.
Third, every inning counts. Whatever team has scored the most runs at the end of an inning gets a bonus point, and if a team manages to get five points, they automatically win the game. Although this sounds confusing at first, once the fans in the stadium explode with cheers after the home team “walks off” an inning, everything falls into place as it becomes clear the team wants the fans to get excited as often as possible.
Although there are plenty of other rules, such as no bunting, no stepping out of the batter’s box, no walks, and others that make the game much more exciting and fast-paced, those are some of the important ones that already make it wildly different from the sport it is copying. In fact, with how many aspects of the game differ from that of regular baseball, it only makes sense that the Bananas are talked about as the “Harlem Globetrotters of baseball.”
To cap off a tour across the country, the Bananas hosted an event called Banana Fest, where they played a game of Banana Ball, but also broke some banana-themed world records. These records included the most people simultaneously wearing banana costumes (1,968), and the longest throw of a real banana (222 feet). The game itself was played between the regular Bananas team that consists of college players, and the Premier Team, who are a touring squad of players that have “graduated” from the team. After an entertainment-filled seven innings, the game clock ran down to zero, and although many of the fans from around 41 different states and multiple countries were sad to leave the show behind, it was an experience they will remember for the rest of their lives.