Banana Ball is for real!

While scoffed by some baseball "purists", Banana Ball mixes real sport, rehearsed entertainment and the ultimate fan experience.

Good morning from Riverton.

First, a little back story. I grew up in the Los Angeles area. I remember listening to the Los Angeles Dodgers games on the radio with Vin Scully and others. This was long before regional sports networks. This was at a time when away games were aired on KTTV Channel 11 and for those lucky folks, some home games aired on ON TV. I preferred listening to the games on the radio. They were a true “theater of the mind” and allowed me to experience the game. This was the era of Steve Garvey, Ron Cey and Reggie Smith. Actually, Reggie Smith lived not too far away from us in Chatsworth and his son went to school with me. Even to this day, even though I now live on the other coast, I still bleed Dodger Blue. I always will.

As I got older, I gained an interest in certain sports that were not of the mainstream for the typical American sports fan. In the late 2000s, I rediscovered women’s flat track roller derby after seeing a news report about the Los Angeles Derby Dolls, an amateur roller derby league that played on a banked track. It brought back memories of my youth watching the Los Angeles T-Birds on TV. I would eventually discover the Arizona Derby Dames, which played their game using flat track and the persona Michi-chan was born. During that time, I immersed myself in the sport. I had some other major changes going on in my life at the time and I felt I had found a place. Not as a player (trust me, I can’t skate worth sh*t), but as some place where I could create a new creative outlet. While the game turned from an underground spectacle to the modern WFTDA sport of today, losing all of the luster that I remember from the early days with the rope lights, loud music and “extended take downs”, it’s still a sport that empowered women. Unfortunately, the sport at the time did not have many fans outside of those who were related to the skaters. Mainly, because the leagues at the time took on the mantra “by the skaters and for the skaters”. At the time, I produced some fun videos that would hopefully increase national awareness in those early days.

Fast forward to 2023 when I discovered another new up and coming sport, Banana Ball. Like modern roller derby, Banana Ball was a fun twist on a something sacred that brought back many childhood memories, listening to KABC, when “It’s A Beautiful Day For A Ballgame” by the Harry Simeone Songsters would play and then Vin Scully would proudly declare “It’s time for Dodger baseball!”.

The first thing I immediately noticed when I started to watch the Banana games was how fan focused the presentation was. Fans were not just there to witness the game, they were actually INVOLVED in the game. In Banana Ball, if a ball is hit foul into the stands and is caught by a fan without assistance, the batter is out. Banana Ball fans can initiate a challenge on the field. Could you imagine if MLB did these things?

I admire Savannah Bananas president and founder Jesse Cole. He managed to do something for baseball that I wanted to do many years ago for roller derby. Making a sport that is “for the fans”. This was an uphill journey for Cole, who started with an empty stadium and a collegiate baseball franchise that started with nothing. Even though he got flack from the media and the local community over the team name and attendance was poor from the start, Cole used is inner P.T. Barnum to create an entertaining fan experience and now, in order to get tickets, you have to get on a waiting list and participate in a lottery or join an official fan club to even have a jab at getting into the game. Since 2016, every game has been a sell out. Banana Ball was taking off! This year, they will have four teams and next year, they will be expanding to six.

Photo credit: Fans First Entertainment

This past Saturday, Banana Ball was played to its biggest crowd ever, a capacity crowd at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. Yes, they sold out a football stadium. It’s not the first time a baseball game was played in a football stadium. I recall the history of my beloved Dodgers playing some of their first games at the Los Angeles Coliseum when they first moved to LA from Brooklyn. I remember the trend of the multi-purpose stadiums from a few decades ago. The multi-use stadiums would not always command a capacity crowd, mainly due to the design, because some seats were just not sold. It took Jesse Cole to do it right. Drape a huge net in right field to create an “invisible monster”. What resulted was a sell-out football crowd for a bat and ball game. It was amazing to see the crowd, especially during the playing of “Yellow” by Coldplay (a Bananas tradition). The game itself was amazing. A game that went to “showdowns” (their solution to extra innings). Overall, I feel it was a total success.

Banana Ball’s need to play at Raymond James was due to the aftermath of Hurricane Milton and the substantial damage at Tropicana Field. Cole already had planned to play two games at The Trop before Milton. Of course, the stadium’s main tenant, the Tampa Bay Rays was not so lucky. For the 2025 season, they will be playing at the smaller George M. Steinbrenner Field, the spring training home of the New York Yankees.

Since Saturday’s Banana Ball game, there have been a lot of observations in the media because while Banana Ball was able to completely sell out a football stadium, the Rays are having difficulty selling seats, even for opening day. Of course, with this amount of attention on the Bananas, it brought the baseball “purists” out of the woodwork who claimed that Banana Ball was not “real” and equated the sport to the Harlem Globetrotters traveling show.

Yes, the Banana Ball presentation does include choreographed dance numbers, elaborate celebrations and fun fan involvement promotions between innings while during game play, players attempt to achieve “trick plays”. Those trick plays are not always successful. Again, many think Globetrotters. Trust me, when you watch a Banana Ball game, outside of the dance numbers and silly fan promotions, the underlying game is as real as it gets.

While Banana Ball has four franchise teams this season, the teams we have seen so far this year are the Savannah Bananas and the Party Animals. There are two other teams that will start later this season, The Firefighters and The Texas Tailgaters. The Party Animals are in no way like the Washington Generals, the traveling team that always loses against the Globetrotters for their show. In the 2023 Banana Ball season, where the final game was played at Doubleday Field in conjunction with a Banana Ball exhibit at the Baseball Hall of Fame, it was the Party Animals, not the Bananas, that won the season. This year, the Party Animals are playing very strong and some may argue that they are the better team, beating the Bananas at their own game.

So, when the attendance numbers of the Bananas and those of the Rays in Tampa Bay were compared, it did stir a lot of questions around how the Bananas can keep selling out games and MLB is not even getting sold out opening day games.

Image credit: Fans First Entertainment

Some of the logistics are an apples and oranges comparison. Despite the realism of the underlying game, Banana Ball is still a traveling show appearing only once or twice at a city before moving elsewhere. In contrast, an MLB team will play an entire season of home games at the stadium. People will travel from across the country to see a Banana Ball game, assuming they score a coveted ticket through winning the lottery or from joining the “K-Club”. It’s not just another day at the ballpark, it is a special event, an experience.

However, the appeal of Banana Ball goes deeper. For me, it all comes down to the greed of the MLB and their owners. Looking at Historic Grayson Stadium in Savannah, Georgia, you don’t see the outfield wall littered with major advertisers. Instead, you see a good ol’ fashion manual scoreboard and a “fan wall” where visitors to the stadium can come on to the field and sign. Makes me think about Dodger Stadium in the 70s and 80s when the outfield wall was a nice plain Dodger blue. I also see the the massive player salaries, even on my own beloved Dodgers. I see the stupid decisions made by the league where it comes to TV deals, where you have to subscribe to a multitude of streaming services just to watch games, yet the league continues to black out home games from MLB.tv just to try to save the faltering regional sports network industry. While Banana Ball has made some errors in their past (games on Satdium), they realized their mistakes and all Banana Ball games are available free to air with no commercials (other than those inserted by YouTube).

I also see the fan experience. The MLB is about elitism. Its about luxury suites and astronomical season ticket prices. Its about a culture that encourages scalping and over inflated ticket prices, even at face value. Banana Ball is different. The face value of tickets is very reasonable and for an extra cost, you can be a “Very Important Banana” (VIB) and get an enhanced experience with better seats and access to certain pre-game perks. Scalping is discouraged. Even for K-Club members, tickets can only be sold to other K-Club members and only at face value. Banana Ball has made it so you can take your family out to the ballgame without having to resort to a Disney budget. For “home” games at Grayson, basic concessions are all-you-can-eat/drink (except beer) and are included in the ticket price.

Banana Ball also addresses some of the issues that frustrate some, especially younger folks about the MLB. Intentional walks are discouraged. Walks are replaced with a “sprint” where on ball four, the batter can go to first, or even go for more. The ball does not go into play until all players touch the ball. In addition, any runners already on base can advance and even score. So yes, it is possible for a runner on second to score on ball four. There’s no bunting because as they put it, bunting sucks. No mound visits that slow down the game. Speaking of pace of play, while the MLB is toying with “pitch clocks”, that cause a lot of grief among players, the Banana Ball method is much simpler. The entire game is managed by a two hour clock. If, after two hours, the time runs out, that inning will be the final inning. Most Banana Ball games now reach the ninth inning within two hours. Pitcher stats are tracked based on “minutes per inning” (MPI) and some of the fastest half-innings have been played in just about one minute. Also, each inning is a game in itself as the game is scored in “points” instead of runs. Win the inning, win a point. The last inning is scored like traditional baseball. This makes for a huge home team advantage.

The conduct of the players, managers, coaches and fans are much better. Unlike in the MLB, you don’t see the constant ejections, fights between players and fans throwing beer in the stands. The players are having fun, the fans are having fun and fun is what it is all about.

While there may be a circus-like atmosphere, it does not mean that it is a circus. It is not a played out act with trick shots like the Globetrotters. It is a real game where players are empowered to not be imprisoned by the expected decorum of baseball, but are free to be themselves and show off. Mistakes are made and you will not know who the winner is until the final pitch. Again, not the Globetrotters.

In 2026, Banana Ball steps up to the next level with an expansion from four to six teams and the introduction of the Banana Ball Championship Series, which will be a true competitive league, with even schedules for each team and one champion at the end of the season. Again, not the Globetrotters.

On June 27, 2025, I will be at Nationals Park where the Savannah Bananas will play The Firefighters. I have a VIB ticket so hopefully I will make it in time for the pre-game festivities (it’s a long drive from Riverton to New Carrolton and then a two train ride on WMATA). I hope to see some of you there if you were lucky to score tickets. Remember to bring a glove! Otherwise, follow the entire Banana Ball season on their YouTube channel. It’s worth a watch!