Savannah Bananas visits 3 ballparks and 18 MLB stadiums in 2015

The Savannah Bananas, the unconventional independent baseball team that has become a nationwide phenomenon, will bring its unique brand of “banana ball” to 18 Major League Baseball stadiums and three soccer stadiums in 2025, it was announced Thursday.

Owner Jesse Cole said sales are expected at each of those locations.

“We played in front of a million fans last year,” Cole told ESPN. “We’ll be playing in front of 2 million fans next year. Maybe it sounds bragging, but our waiting list is 3 million at the moment.”

The Bananas will be joined by the Party Animals, the Firefighters, and a new team called the Texas Tailgaters, during a 39-game tour that runs from March to September.

The football stadiums that will host the tour stops are Memorial Stadium (Clemson), Nissan Stadium (Tennessee Titans), and Bank of America Stadium (Carolina Panthers).

The Bananas will also play two games at home for the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago White Sox, Colorado Rockies and Washington Nationals. , Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Angels, Atlanta Braves, Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins.

The visits were announced Thursday night during the organization’s annual “World City Tour Draft” on YouTube, after which fans were able to enter a ticket lottery through the team’s website.

The banana ball made its way to six MLB stadiums this year — Miami, Philadelphia, Boston, Houston, Cleveland and Washington — and drew massive crowds everywhere, with tens of thousands of fans showing up hours before game time to take part in the pre-game festivities. . Notable former players such as Ryan Howard, Roger Clemens, Jimmy Muir, Shane Victorino, Corey Kluber, Johnny Gomez and Josh Reddick played in those games.

“Now as we go out to these big league stadiums, we’re being reached out to by a lot of former stars — All-Stars, World Series champions, MVPs — who want to be a part of it,” Cole said. espn. “It’s just wild.”

The beta phase for Banana Ball, born out of a desire to speed up the pace of baseball games and keep fans engaged, began a little over five years ago. It is now played year-round by the Savannah Bananas and their affiliated teams.

The concept consists of 11 rules. Stepping out of the batter’s box results in a hit, and attempts at a hard hit invite an ejection. No hill visits are allowed. Each round exists as its own entity, and games are limited to two hours in length. Fans are allowed to challenge calls and can score out by catching foul balls.

Instead of the traditional walk, batters run around the bases on a fourth ball and continue forward until the defensive team throws a baseball to each player. In the case of a passed ball or wild pitch, batters can “steal first,” regardless of the count. A singles standoff is arranged instead of extra innings, in which the field is emptied except for one player, the pitcher and his catcher, and the batter attempts to run into the field when the ball is put in play.

The eleventh rule – the “golden bat” – was recently introduced, allowing each team one opportunity to field any batter from anywhere in the lineup.

Cole’s idea book for Banana Ball is now part of an exhibit unveiled at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, in September 2023. The series of announcements Thursday included the formation of the Banana Ball Championship League, which will participate in the Banana Ball Championship League. It begins in the year 2026 and consists of six teams, with Cole eventually aiming to “take banana ball around the world”.

“At first people were like, ‘Well, you’re just baseball’s Harlem Globetrotters,'” Cole said. “I take it as a compliment because the Globetrotters fundamentally changed the game of basketball, and they will continue for 100 years.

“But we look at ourselves like we’re building a sport. We’re building something for future generations to enjoy and we’re making something really special. And that’s where this dream gets much bigger.”

In the fall of 2015, Cole and his wife, Emily, purchased the Georgia-based former Class A affiliate of the New York Mets as a new college summer league team. Their debts quickly grew to $1 million. They sold their home in North Carolina, emptied their savings accounts, moved to Savannah, Georgia, and plunged headlong into the daunting task of selling eccentric baseball to staunch traditionalists.

The momentum began to shift when their team mascot, Banana, was announced. The team’s circus-like entertainment eventually made Bananas a major attraction. The team made the games affordable and treated them like large events, with players wearing skirts, performing choreographed dances and participating in antics for fans. The Bananas soon began regularly selling out Grayson Stadium, the century-old stadium that once hosted Babe Ruth, and Banana Ball eventually became their year-round style of play.

Since then their brand has grown exponentially.

“It’s something I never could have imagined,” said Cole, a former college player. “Walt Disney has been my biggest mentor forever. He said, ‘It’s fun to do the impossible.’ I feel like, in many ways, we’re doing the impossible.”