Like the Harlem Globetrotters on the Baseball Diamond, ‘Banana Ball’ Is Hitting a Home Run With Its Fans

Emily Cole laughs when people suggest the wildly successful Savannah Bananas baseball franchise is an overnight success.They don’t know how she and husband, Jesse, a former Division 1 baseball player, poured every penny they had into a dream of making baseball fan-friendly. They don’t know the Coles once sold their home to meet payroll or how $30 had to cover food for the week. They don’t know how nearly everyone in Savannah initially mocked the nickname “Bananas” chosen from a fan contest, or how the dedicated couple had to beg people to attend games and players to join their team.“It was really rough in the beginning,” Ms. Cole told the Sun. “People said, ‘You’re making a mockery of the sport; you’re making a mockery of our city; you’re outsiders; you’re not doing the right thing for the game. But we knew if we could just get people to the ball park, they would experience it and see it was different and leave saying, ‘I’ve never seen anything like that.’ That’s what we wanted.”That was eight years ago. Today, the naysayers have disappeared, replaced by legions of loyal fans throughout the nation eager to see the Savannah Bananas display their uniquely entertaining brand of Banana Ball.In the first five months of 2025, the Bananas performed to sold-out crowds in some of the nation’s largest stadiums, including LoanDepot Park in Miami, Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, and Angel Stadium in Anaheim. Future games at Boston’s Fenway Park and Busch Stadium in St. Louis are already sold out, while tickets to see Banana Ball on September 13-14 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx are going fast.“When we got people to the ballpark, exactly what we hoped would start happening, started happening,” Ms. Cole said. “People were amazed. People were happy. They went home and shared their experience with their friends and kept coming back.”Banana Ball is dubbed the fastest and most entertaining form of baseball. The players might show up in kilts, walk the yellow carpet before an at-bat, or indulge in over-the-top scoring celebrations.Banana Ball games might include the World’s Tallest Hitter and Pitcher in 10-foot-tall Dakota “Stilts” Albritton, and umpires who might do the robot or twerk while calling balls and strikes. The manager might do the moonwalk, relaying signs to the hitter, while the game’s master of ceremonies, Jesse Cole, entertains fans while dressed in a yellow tuxedo.Among the rules of Banana Ball are a two-hour time limit, no stepping out of the batter’s box, no bunting, no walks, no mound visits, and if a fan catches a fly ball, it’s an out.Whichever team scores the most runs in an inning gets a point, except in the last inning, where every run counts as a point. The team with the most points wins the game. If the game is tied at the end of nine innings, it becomes pitcher versus hitter with one fielder, and the hitter has to score. Yes, it’s wild. “Our goal every single game is to do 10 or 15 things every single night that people have not seen before,” Ms. Cole said. “Our goal is when you show up, you have no idea what to expect. Sometimes we don’t even know if it’s going to work. That’s the beauty of it.”Banana Ball began when Savannah’s minor league baseball team left town in October 2015. The Coles, living in North Carolina at the time, saw a vacant Grayson Stadium and an opportunity.They launched a team in Savannah that was part of the Coastal Plain League, a college wooden bat league. The co-owners spent the next few years tracking how fans left games after about two hours and became disengaged during mound visits and timeouts.“Because our company is called ‘Fans First Entertainment,’ we kept thinking, ‘How do we put more entertainment in this and how do we make this more about the fans?” Ms. Cole said. “We basically began toying with a new sport and created new rules.”In 2022, they left the wooden bat league and transformed the team into the Savannah Bananas, playing Banana Ball. The Bananas went to one city in the first year, seven cities the next year, and 33 cities in 2024. The 2025 schedule lists 48 appearances.It’s a far cry from the day in 2016 when the young couple decided to sell their home in North Carolina to meet payroll. “The only asset left at the time was the house,” Ms. Cole said. “We were so blindly optimistic about this, and we wanted it to work so bad, selling the house was an easy decision for us.”They met payroll and found a garage in Savannah that was renovated into an apartment. “When I first took my husband there to see it, he walked right back out,” Ms. Cole said. “So we bought that and made it work. We had no kids at the time. Our whole world was making this team work.”Now the Bananas draw thousands of fans nationwide, paired against rival Banana Ball teams called the Party Animals, the Firefighters, and the Texas Tailgaters. Two more teams will be announced in October to form an actual league that will feature round-robin competition, playoffs, and an eventual Banana Ball champion.It’s no longer difficult to get players. “We have thousands of players who reach out now,” Ms. Cole said. “But it’s more than being a good athlete. We want players who are going to high-five a little kid or hug grandma, and they’re doing it because that’s the kind of human they are.”The Savannah Bananas have been called the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball, a comparison the Coles embrace, but also want to clarify. While the entertainment between at-bats and even pitches might be scripted, the competition or outcome is not. “We script every part of the fan experience from the music to the interactions to the celebrations, but when the players set foot on the diamond, that’s complete competition,” Ms. Cole said. “The Bananas don’t always win.”The Coles have done all this while raising two adopted daughters and serving as licensed foster parents, who take in teenagers on a short-term or emergency basis. Banana Ball hasn’t changed that compassionate service. “It gives the agencies we’re working with time to find long-term placement for them,” Ms. Cole said.The long-term future of Banana Ball looks bright. The latest innovation is an upcoming “Bananaland at Sea” cruise in October, where fans can mingle with Banana Ball players. “As long as we’re creating fans and creating joy in the world, then that is the path that we’re going to follow,” Ms. Cole said.

Like the Harlem Globetrotters on the Baseball Diamond, ‘Banana Ball’ Is Hitting a Home Run With Its Fans

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