Savannah Bananas - Bush Leaguers or Globetrotters?

Savannah Bananas - Bush Leaguers or Globetrotters? - by Jack Johnson

The Savannah Bananas have been described as the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball. They even promote themselves as a "World Famous Baseball Circus". Whatever you call them they are the hottest ticket in the entire world of baseball right now.

It's amazing that all of the team's games are broadcast on YouTube for free and they still sell out. It's one of those you have to be there kind of things. A televised Bananas game just doesn't do it justice. You must have the live experience. Think about the difference in someone telling you how good a bowl of banana pudding is as opposed to actually eating it yourself.

They battle on the diamond against a select group of foes. Their biggest rival being the Party Animals (think Washington Generals). The Bananas team and their competition are composed of legitimate athletes with a variety of minor league and college baseball experience. The crazy rules the game is governed by still aren't as crazy as Major League Baseball placing a man on second base to start an extra inning game. There's nothing that dumb.?

The Bananas have a great band made up of talented musicians that are very entertaining. Canned music blares over the speakers during the entire game. The walks up to the plate from the dugout are not Vince McMahon level in presentation but of high quality and well thought out. It's sports entertainment and every player has a gimmick. The ball is yellow. The bases are yellow. There's lots of fan interaction. Constant noise. The good kind of noise.

It's nice to see lots of kids enjoying this pseudo sport before the game starts, during its two-hour time limit, and after the game outside the stadium in the parking lot. Some of the Nashville fans I spoke to said they didn't understand all the rules but I know a lot of long time MLB fans that still don't understand the infield fly rule or how a relief pitcher qualifies for a save.?In Banana Ball if a fan catches a foul ball popped up into the stands the batter is out. That's silly but at the same time the epitome of fan participation.?

Will the Bananas help create interest in baseball among the masses? Maybe. They have definitely drawn a massive number of folks to minor league ballparks that are not baseball fans. It seemed no one really knew who former Nashville Sound, Cy Young award winner and World Series champion Barry Zito was when he took the mound in a guest appearance. He competed as "Rhino" in Season 3 of "The Masked Singer". Zito didn't get much of a pop after his outing when he actually sang and played guitar near third base for nearly three-minutes while the game was going on.?

They have a mascot that wears a big banana costume. His name is "Split". I was admiring his massive autograph and picture line in the front of the stadium after the game while at the same time wondering if someone would treasure a yellow ball forever that had the name/word "Split" on it. Then I looked to the right of me and, sitting alone in the middle of the steps that lead to the stadium entrance, was a 76-year-old man.

I said, "You're the "Spaceman" Bill Lee, right?" He said, "You're right." I asked him if I could get a picture and he emphatically replied, "Let's take a selfie!" After speaking with him at length and in great detail about the 1975 World Series he made two-starts in I feared I was wearing out my?welcome. I started to get up and leave as I told him I was waiting for my wife and he said, "Ah...sit down. We'll wait for her here."

There's a much less famous Bill Lee in the Nashville area. He's the current Governor of the State of Tennessee. This Bill Lee is the left-handed baseball legend that threw an eephus pitch to Tony Perez during The Fall Classic. The guy that drove something like 18-hours from Vermont to Nashville by himself to pitch in the previous night's game. He only threw one pitch! "That's all they let me throw", he said. "I could have gone an inning."?

While?Eddie "The King" Feigner remains the single most entertaining baseball/softball performer I've ever seen in person,?The Savannah Bananas are definitely at the top of the the baseball pop charts this year. The turnstile doesn't lie. The Bananas ain't bush league at the box office. They are printing money.

I don't think libraries and bookstores are going to start stocking hard copies of "The Baseball Encyclopedia" for fans of these Savannah Bananas guys anytime soon. Those fans are never going to be considered students of the game as long as they totally don't recognize a baseball legend like Bill Lee but do get extremely excited about standing in a huge line to meet a guy dressed up like a banana.

It's still going to be hard to convert these baseball circus fans to MLB but...just like flavored tobacco, maybe it's good starting point to get them addicted.

May Banana Ball live forever!

(Jack Johnson is a former scoreboard operator and public address announcer for the Knoxville Blue Jays, a former University of Tennessee baseball play-by-play announcer and he is currently in first place in his ESPN Fantasy Baseball League).