A night in LSU with the Savannah Bananas
Out of the corner of his eye, Jesse Cole noticed a mistake. Cole, the owner of the Savannah Bananas, was explaining why the circuslike baseball team came to LSU’s Alex Box Stadium on its nationwide tour, but first he needed to correct one of the dances that make this traveling show a sensation.
Dressed in his canary yellow tuxedo and top hat, Cole walked toward home plate as the team went through its pregame rehearsal Thursday afternoon. This dance came from a TikTok trend, and Cole did not like that one pitcher had done something overly suggestive. He also wanted the moves to appear bigger and cohesive.
“I had to jump in there,” Cole said. “I didn’t like the way it looked. I came up with this idea, so I want to make sure it’s done right.”
Cole watched the players try again. He began to talk, then stopped as the song played for a third time. Cole drew inspiration from Walt Disney as he transformed a collegiate summer league team, and he often tells the story of Disney adjusting chairs hours before a press conference. He, too, wants precision.
“When they do this, it’s the difference between a video being good and making an impact with 100,000 fans or a video being great and making an impact on millions of fans,” Cole said. “Every detail matters.”
Six hours before first pitch, the entertainment staff continues to work out the kinks. Fireworks arrive. Videographers discuss where to stand on the concourse. Second baseman Jackson Olson rehearses Ryan Gosling’s Oscars performance of “I’m Just Ken” for a walk-out bit, and two LSU players throw in deep right field, trying to stay out of the way.
That night, the Savannah Bananas started a sold-out three-game series against their rivals, the Party Animals. Fans crowded the plaza to enter Alex Box Stadium. Over the next few hours, they saw a pregame bananathrowing contest, a twerking umpire, a race called “Sugar Daddy” in which four men were doused in powdered sugar, a pitcher wearing a quiver, a pinch hitter on stilts and in the midst of the chaos, a baseball game.
From 2016-22, the Savannah Bananas were a collegiate summer team in the Coastal Plain League. After winning their second straight title in 2022, they focused full-time on what the organization calls “Banana Ball,” a creation that blends constant in-game entertainment with baseball. The team follows 11 unusual rules, including a two-hour time limit, no bunting and no walks. Batters can steal first base. Every inning counts for a point. If a fan catches a foul ball, it’s an out.
In their second year of the venture, the Bananas and the Party Animals scheduled a nationwide tour that will take them through six major league ballparks. Cole said the games at Alex Box Stadium generated the third-highest demand for tickets. Almost 200,000 people joined a lottery. Alex Box Stadium was also the first college venue the Bananas ever played in. Cole wanted to gauge how the show would “translate” to similar markets.
“This stadium, this is a huge test for the future,” he told the teams before the start of rehearsal.
Banana Ball is not for the baseball purist. Cole and his staff mixed the sport with other forms of entertainment, purposefully avoiding convention to stand out. Music never stopped playing. For the ceremonial first pitch, a man had to crawl blindfolded to find a banana — then throw that. The baseballs and the bases are yellow. Before every game, an infant in a banana costume gets lifted to the sky like Simba. They wore kilts Sunday.
Traditionalists may scoff, but the presentation made the team famous and excited kids. Outfielder Noah Bridges, nicknamed the “Heartthrob of Bananaland,” did not play Thursday. At one point, he went into the stands to sign a poster. So many children swarmed that he had to move to the concourse, where they formed a semicircle around him, clamoring for autographs and pictures.
“We want to win the game, and we want to entertain,” catcher Bill LeRoy said. “Being around this energy of the ballpark and what the fans bring to us, we feel like we have to give it back to them. I feel like a lot of our guys give a ton of energy. I just enjoy being behind the plate. I feel like it’s my stage.”
LeRoy went into the stands to interact with fans multiple times before the game. While catching, he danced at random moments and threw the ball back to the pitcher after bouncing it between his legs. Now in his seventh year with the organization, LeRoy played for the collegiate summer league team between seasons at the University of North Georgia.
“There’s no telling what I would be doing if I didn’t play here in Bananaball,” LeRoy said. “God had a different plan for me to be here. I wanted to play baseball. I wanted to be a professional. Who knows where I would have been in this country. Maybe playing baseball, maybe coaching, maybe cutting grass for all I know. I’m thankful to be here.”
As much as the Bananas distinguish themselves with everything they do unrelated to the sport, they try to maintain a quality baseball product. Their starting pitcher Thursday, left-hander Ryan Kellogg, was picked in the fifth round of the 2015 MLB Draft by the Chicago Cubs. He reached AAA in 2021, his last season in the minors.
“If the baseball sucks, all these fans that are little league parents and little league coaches, they’d tear it to shreds — and for good reason,” director of entertainment Zack Frongillo said. “The baseball has to be at a high level to supplement the entertainment.”
While looking for players, the team primarily tracks independent leagues and college seniors. Baseball operations coordinator Berry Aldridge said tryouts are invite-only because the Bananas get “thousands of submissions a year to play for us.” Tryouts involve dancing, and personality matters. The operation only works with people who can strike out four times, then dance through the stands.
“We don’t want the guy that just drops his bat and runs to first,” Frongillo said. “We want the guy that if he hits a single, he throws his bat 30 feet in the air and he’s getting everybody fired up for a single that doesn’t even matter. That’s the kind of stuff that we look for and love.”
To keep standing out, Cole and his staff constantly try to think of new ideas and monitor social media trends. He has written down 10 ideas every day for six years straight, swearing “I don’t miss a day.” Cole, Frongillo and others bring their thoughts to a weekly meeting they call OTT — which stands for “Over the Top” — to create an entertainment script.
Cole resists comparisons to the Harlem Globetrotters for that reason. He says the barnstorming basketball team has the same show, while the Bananas do new bits every game. They had never done the “Sugar Daddy” contest before, and it stemmed from someone else suggesting one called “Hot Mommas” that the team spun to reference beignets.
“We have a group of creative that gets together on these things and we have a group of entertainment that gets together on promos and we have all these different idea sessions every single week to go into every single weekend,” Cole said. “We’ll start again next week.”
Cole said the team has 2 million fans on the waitlist for tickets. He wants to expand to reach a wider audience, so the Party Animals have their own tour this year. A third team called The Firefighters will be introduced this summer.
After the games in Alex Box Stadium, the tour will continue with stops at five more major league parks sprinkled between cities around the country. As they go, the Bananas will keep trying to push their unusual product forward so it continues to grow. Or in their case, split.