Going Bananas
Baseball’s hottest ticket turns up the heat still further.
In our current upside-down world, it’s probably only a matter of time before MLB tries to recruit Jesse Cole to become Commissioner. But why on earth would he bother?
The owner of the Savannah Bananas, the barnstorming baseball-adjacent show which has become the hottest ticket in sports, is on top of his own yellow world right now. This past week he took his troupe to South Carolina to perform in front of 81,000 fans who had sold out Clemson’s Death Valley Stadium months ago in just three hours – about an hour longer than one of the team’s games.
It was the 236th game in Bananas history and by far their biggest crowd yet. The previous mark was a mere 45,000 sell-out at Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park in September, one of six MLB stadiums they rocked last summer. As part of this year’s tour they’ll be playing two games at Camden Yards here in Baltimore. Tickets are, obviously, already sold out.
If somehow you’re still unfamiliar with the Bananas’ backstory from the most minor of minor league ball to literally a national phenomenon, Joe Pompliano has a great 10-minute video breakdown of how they got where they are and, more importantly, where they’re going. With a new ESPN broadcast deal and another series of stadium shows lined up for the summer, for now their ‘apeel’ shows no sign of abating. Sorry…
Even 60 Minutes, that pillar of the cultural mainstream, got in on the act ahead of the Clemson game.
In Banana Ball, an average inning lasts about four minutes and no game goes longer than two hours. If you think you usually see something you’ve never seen before at a regular ball game, that happens pretty much every at-bat here.
I watched the game on ESPN2 in a sports bar and it’s genuinely exhausting; from the gyrating ninja umpires to the dance routines and trick plays, to the “world’s tallest hitter” who also pitches. On stilts. There isn’t a moment that’s not filled with something loud and colorful to occupy and overload the attention – particularly of little kids who might be hard-pressed to make it through three or four innings of a normal game. I couldn’t take my eyes off it and had a smile on my face the whole time. Everything is focused around the performance; the team’s motto is “Fans First, Entertain Always.”
Amid the constant soundtrack of classic rock tunes, one batter came to the plate dressed like a leprechaun and carrying a beer, to which the announcer commented – as if reading a regular stat line – “he’s already hit one home run after a beer chug this season.”
Perhaps the most intriguing thing the broadcast crew said was “For everyone keeping score at home…” Obviously, the rules are not as fans of regular baseball might understand them, but why would you even try to score something like this when there’s just so much to watch?
The only thing I remember statistically was that thanks to a short porch in the reconfigured football stadium, the game saw a record number of Banana Ball home runs as the Bananas beat the Party Animals, who were dressed in shocking pink uniforms like they were in a Madonna video from 1982. Don’t ask me the final score.
The Party Animals are the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globetrotters, except the games are actually competitive – the outcome is the only thing that’s not scripted. The broadcasters often say of the players “you wonder how he ended up in Banana Ball” and the players are most definitely solid athletes; former minor leaguers who are also clearly compatible with Jesse Cole’s PT Barnum-esque mindset of showmanship.
“Flamboyant” is one description of this game. “Cerebral” probably not so much.
Like it or not, this is what MLB is going to have to compete with for the fans of the future. Imagine how a little kid might react if they’re taken to the Bananas before they go to see their first ‘regular’ baseball game.
And kids are the focus of the team’s admirable charitable efforts, through their ‘Bananas Foster’ initiative.
But let’s be honest, the All-Star Game’s annual Home Run Derby is already becoming something of a circus, while MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred even had to deny last year there were plans to adopt some variant of one of the Bananas’ rules, the “Golden Batter” where once in a game a team can send its best hitter to the plate at any time.
Just as the Globetrotters co-existed with the NBA, “Banana Ball” and the plan to expand into its own competitive league next season can easily work alongside MLB as a separate product. That doesn’t mean the national pastime can’t learn something from it.
After all, as far as the game of baseball is concerned, where the Bananas are right now, amid an attention-shortened America starving for fun, is arguably just the latest inevitable step along a road originally paved by the great barnstorming teams of the past, as well as more recently by the likes of Bill Veeck and Eddie Gaedel.
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This Week’s (Real) Game Notes:
Friday 25 April, Johns Hopkins vs Washington College, Babb Field, Baltimore MD.
JHU clinched top seed in the upcoming Centennial Conference Tournament by beating Washington College 13-4. It was the Blue Jays’ 16th straight victory, taking their season record to 34-3.
Friday also saw a gathering of friends and family to mark the final home game for long-serving JHU coach Bob Babb who is retiring at the end of the season.
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Tuesday 29 April, Baltimore Orioles vs New York Yankees, Oriole Park, Baltimore MD.
The city has this week been marking the tenth anniversary of the upheavals surrounding the death of Freddie Gray.
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Ten years to the day after the “game with no fans” the Orioles probably wished no-one had been at Camden tonight to witness their lackluster capitulation.
The team had been on a slide, losing in Detroit at the weekend to end 30 straight series without being swept, and leaving them in last place heading into this series against last season’s AL champs. A narrow win in the opening game on Monday gave some fleeting cause for optimism.
Kyle Gibson returned on the mound on Tuesday for his first start of the season. It didn’t go well.
The Yankees hit back-to-back-to-back homers in the first inning - the first team to ever open multiple games with three consecutive homers in a single season. To add insult to injury, Carlos Rodon took a perfect game into the sixth inning before issuing a walk to Emmanuel Rivera and Jorge Mateo brought him home on a double to kill off the no-hitter.
I’ve been to three Orioles games in the past few weeks and Charlie Morton has pitched in them all. By the time he came on in relief in the fifth this game was well out of sight.
Chelsea Janes writes at The Washington Post that:
“Baltimore starts May with a season that can go one of two ways.
“The first, once unfathomable for a team that spent the winter wondering how to go deeper in the playoffs rather than worrying about getting there, is that it continues to sputter. The Orioles’ pitching does not recover, their offense cannot compensate, and they end up wasting a year of their treasured window to contend in total mediocrity. This scenario would probably include casualties, whether in the clubhouse or the manager’s office or even upstairs. After an agonizing rebuild, this team is too talented to squander its chances.
“The other option is recovery. The worst AL team to qualify for last year’s postseason was the Detroit Tigers, who finished with 86 wins. To reach 86 wins this year, the Orioles will need to go 74-58 the rest of the way, a .561 winning percentage. This core played to a .623 winning percentage for 162 games in 2023 and a .562 winning percentage despite a dismal second half in 2024. The math does not rule out a revival.”
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As always, thanks for reading. I try to write a baseball-specific post midweek and then do a politics wrap at weekends. Sometimes there’s crossover, sometimes not. One is usually more sane, but not always.
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