Banana Ball is headed to Sox Park: The Savannah Bananas’ 2025 schedule contains 2 video games at Assured Fee Area

The Savannah Bananas are taking their baseball hijinks to the gridiron in 2025.

Group proprietor Jesse Cole stated his barnstorming squad, which has packed stadiums across the nation with its rollicking, freewheeling model of the nationwide pastime often called Banana Ball, will play at Clemson’s 81,000-seat Memorial Stadium on April 26.

The Bananas additionally will host a pair of video games at NFL amenities, Cole stated. They’ll play at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, the 69,000-seat dwelling of the Tennessee Titans, on Could 10, adopted by 75,000-seat Financial institution of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C., dwelling of the Carolina Panthers, on June 7.

“These will likely be a few of the greatest crowds in baseball historical past to see Banana Ball,” Cole informed the Related Press.

Since a full-sized baseball subject doesn’t match within the tighter confines of a soccer stadium, particularly on the dwelling of the Clemson Tigers, the Bananas plan to put in netting at the least 50 toes excessive to make it a bit more durable to hit one out within the shortest portion of the outfield.

Cole — ever the promoter — famous the barrier in all three soccer stadiums will likely be considerably taller than Fenway Park’s 37-foot-high Inexperienced Monster. And, in fact, the Bananas plan to make use of the weird dimensions to full comedic benefit.

“In Banana Ball, we wish to make issues a bit of completely different,” stated Cole, who is understood for the yellow tuxedos he wears to video games. “We’re going to have enjoyable with it.”

The Bananas, who began as summer-league group for faculty gamers, have turn out to be a touring sensation with their carnival-style model of the sport, which incorporates choreographed dance routines, gamers on stilts and strange guidelines similar to outs counting when a fan catches a foul ball within the stands.

They even have an exhibit on the Baseball Corridor of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Cole stated the Bananas and their affiliated groups, the Social gathering Animals and Firefighters, have drawn greater than 1 million followers this 12 months. The aim for subsequent 12 months is 2 million.

“We’re not simply constructing a group, we’re constructing a sport,” Cole stated, “It’s all about creating the quickest, most entertaining sport for the followers.”

He takes umbrage with those that name the Bananas nothing greater than the Harlem Globetrotters with bats and gloves, declaring that the winner is rarely predetermined.

“We now have folks say, ‘Hey, these guys can actually play,’” he stated. “The Bananas truly misplaced their tour in 2023. They misplaced extra video games than they gained in opposition to the Social gathering Animals. That’s not going to occur to the Globetrotters.”

Cole stated Clemson plans to put in a baseball diamond, full with a dust infield, on the grass subject at Demise Valley. The stadiums in Nashville and Charlotte, which have synthetic turf surfaces, will paint within the basepaths and different options to make them look extra like ballparks.

The Bananas additionally will headline 18 weekends at major-league stadiums in 2025, together with the Chicago White Sox’s Assured Fee Area on Aug. 15-16 and stops at Yankee Stadium in New York, Camden Yards in Baltimore and Truist Park in Atlanta. They’ll play two video games every at these parks.

Throughout their 2024 marketing campaign, the Bananas performed earlier than sellout crowds at big-league ballparks in Houston, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston and Cleveland, with one other packed home anticipated subsequent week for a recreation on the Miami Marlins stadium.

The Bananas additionally will maintain 30 video games of their dwelling base of Savannah, the quirky metropolis on Georgia’s coast the place they have been based in 2016. They play at 5,000-seat Grayson Stadium, which opened in 1926.

“It’s our dwelling,” Cole stated. “We now have 200-plus individuals who journey across the nation with us, however we all the time come again to Savannah. It’s the smallest stadium we play at by far, nevertheless it’s the place it began for us.”

The Bananas can have a brand new opponent subsequent season, as a group often called the Texas Tailgaters will be a part of the Social gathering Animals and Firefighters. Cole is now planning to start out his personal circuit, the Banana Ball Championship League, with two extra squads coming aboard in 2026.

One can solely think about what the prize will likely be for the title-winning group.

A trophy formed like a banana, maybe?

“In between the soccer stadiums and MLB stadiums and a couple of million followers, we’re dreaming as massive as we are able to,” Cole stated. “We would as effectively begin a league whereas we’re at it.”

Initially Printed: October 3, 2024 at 9:16 PM CST