9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
The Savannah Bananas are a baseball fever dream, and they're on national TV this Saturday
There's always money in the banana stand, and there's always a good time in Banana Ball. The exhibition baseball circuit's premier humorists keep barnstorming Saturday at Nationals Park. Live from the nation's capital, it's … whatever this is!
This game will also be available on ESPN+.
Something called the 'Banana Ball World Tour' invites a round of questioning and clarification. This is our best effort to make sense of what we're about to see.
Let's go wide to start off. Our peeled protagonists are independent and unaffiliated with MLB. They used to compete as members of the Coastal Plain League, a collegiate summer baseball collective based in the South Atlantic. By 2023, the Bananas split (yup) from that league and shifted into full-time exhibition ball. Why be the life of someone else's dreary luncheon when you can throw your own lampshade-on-head banger?
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The Bananas face off with a short rotation of partners. Those teams have suitably awesome names like the Texas Tailgaters and Party Animals. Saturday's game is against the Firefighters. What's a goon to a goblin? What's an extinguisher to a plantain? We don't have that answer yet, but stay tuned as our research progresses.
Kind of. The game itself is unscripted and (somewhat) competitive. The Bananas and their opponents do indeed keep score. Still, proceedings go off the rails right quick, and we'll find precious few fans stressed about bullpen matchups or bad base-running.
Of course there are. For starters, no bunting. That's an automatic out. No mound visits, because that's a waste of time. And no games exceeding the two-hour mark, unless a tiebreaker is needed. Fair enough. Now, for the true loopiness. Here's a five-pack of extra-unique Banana bylaws:
Existential dread wilts in Bananaland. This is the team that turns strikeouts to potassium. Trust that this action is informed by a strange, unshakable love for baseball.
None of the current players achieved MLB fame, but several have established themselves as comic performers, internet personalities and delightful novelties. Dakota Albritton is the best known of the Banana bunch, because he charts at 10-foot-9 on his trademark stilts. Seeing is believing, and oh, how we will now believe:
The stilts are just the tip of the iceberg, if that iceberg were a colossal frozen banana. Here is a limited list of Banana Ball occurrences:
Come for the Bananas, stay for Ham Porter, or Travis Hunter, or the world's undisputed wrestling champion:
As we can tell, the Bananas traffic in a unique chaos. Anything is on the table with these folks. One constant, though, is inviting former star athletes back to their old home fields. Shane Victorino and Joe Blanton popped out in Philadelphia. Alex Gordon and Eric Hosmer came through in Kansas City. Former Tennessee Titan Jevon Kearse did the 'weigh-in dance' in Nashville. Expect to see some notable retired Nats at Nationals Park.
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We absolutely can. Baseball fandom will always hold space for random roster recitation. This correspondent will go with Ian Desmond, Jayson Werth and Tanner Roark. Give us your stray Nationals guesses in the comments, or hit us with other novelty baseball modifications worthy of Banana Ball.
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(Photo by Sean Rayford / Getty Images)
