Savannah Bananas

The Savannah Bananas is baseball meets P. T. Barnum, and they’ve sold out every game since day one. There’s a player on stilts. A marching band that parades behind the batters as they step to the plate. A Dougie-dancing umpire. A rodeo clown who throws trick pitches, often with his oversized pants around his ankles. A Banana Nanas cheerleading squad composed exclusively of grandmas. After five years of marginal awareness, the Savannah Bananas baseball team are exploding in popularity, propelled by an ESPN documentary, an expanded US tour for 2023, and their spectator-friendly Banana Balls rules that ensure nonstop action, constant entertainment, and frequent fan interaction. Purists howl that this isn’t baseball. Fans don’t care.

It’s hyperbole to talk about tradition with a fandom that’s only existed for five years, so let’s say that the best ritual of the Savannah Bananas is inviting a random kid from the stands to throw out the first pitch of each game. Not a symbolic first pitch, mind you, it’s the actual first pitch of the game. How cool is that?

It’s right in their mission statement: Make baseball less boring. Will MLB adopt the Banana Balls rules? Not likely. Will all the major sports leagues take note of the fan engagement, fresh thinking, and sellout crowds that the upstart Bananas have unleashed? You’d be bananas not to think so.