Team bringing ‘Banana Ball’ to state in spring
Professional baseball teams have held spring training in Arizona regularly since the 1940s, but the spring of 2023 will feature something new: Banana Ball.
The Bananas, an offshoot of the Savannah Bananas, will play two games in the Valley this spring: March 30 at Scottsdale Stadium and April 1at Peoria Sports Complex.
“We’re fired up,” Bananas owner Jesse Cole said of his team’s upcoming debut in Arizona.
The opponent in both games will be another team of professional players, the Party Animals.
The games will be played under “Banana Ball” rules. Those include a twohour time limit and no bunting, no visits to the mound, no stepping out of the batter’s box and no walks.
The idea, Cole has said, is to get rid of as many boring parts of baseball as possible.
Banana Ball debuted two summers ago and is a derivative of the Savannah Bananas, an amateur collegiate team that played in the Coastal Plain League.
Cole and his wife Emily bought the franchise in 2016 and built it into one of the best stories in baseball. Their games have been sold out for years, and tickets include all-can-eat concessions.
The games are filled with songs, promotions and dancing. Players, coaches and fans all participate.
This season was the Bananas’ last in the CPL, and they are shifting to playing
Banana Ball year round. Their roster will be comprised of former Bananas players in addition to former major leaguers.
The Bananas plan to play more than 40 games around the country in 2023 and more than 30 in Savannah.
“With Banana Ball, we saw that 98 percent of the fans stayed until the end
of the game,” Cole said in a news release. “This was groundbreaking for the game of baseball. But most importantly, we heard from the players and thousands of fans that this was the most fun they had playing and watching baseball.”
For ticket information and more details, visit thesavannahbananas.com.