Team Tampa Bay's Take with Joey Johnston: Bananas in Tampa Bay

By Joey Johnston

The Savannah Bananas are coming to Tampa’s Steinbrenner Field for a pair of night games on Friday and Saturday as part of their 33-city World Tour. If you’re among the fortunate 20,000 or so who have secured tickets, I can promise you it’s a sight to behold.

Now … what exactly will you be seeing?

It’s baseball. You’re going to see talented baseball players, some of whom have performed at the sport’s highest levels. But calling the Savannah Bananas a “baseball team’’ is like referring to Sinatra as a saloon singer. This is baseball entertainment — with an emphasis on “entertainment.’’

You’ll see dancing — lots and lots of dancing — including some well-choreographed routines that break out among the infielders before the pitch is delivered. You might see a pitcher on stilts or a guy going to the plate with his bat on fire. You could see an outfielder doing a backflip before making a catch.

There are Banana-themed rules to keep the action moving. You get a point for winning an inning — so you might see a “walk-off’’ celebration (with players racing through the stands to exchange high-fives with fans) after the first inning. There are no mound visits. Batters aren’t permitted to leave the box. Bunts aren’t allowed.

If a fan catches a foul ball, it’s an out.

Let’s say that again:

IF A FAN CATCHES A FOUL BALL, IT’S AN OUT.

The fast-paced games have a two-hour time limit (and an equally fast-paced tiebreaker system if the game is tied at the time limit).

The Savannah Bananas began as a college summer team in 2016 — the catchy Bananas nickname was suggested by a fan in a name-the-team contest — and the part-baseball, part-sideshow, all-fun approach quickly caught on. The Bananas have been sold out from the start.

With their hilarious, often-irreverent viral presence on social media, the Bananas have developed an overwhelming following that prompted the growth of their World Tour to 33 cities (it was seven cities in 2022). The teams are a mix of former major-leaguers and players with minor-league and independent-league experiences, along with a handful who possess special talents (such as trick pitches and bat-manipulation skills).

There’s a WWE-element to the proceedings. The Bananas are opposed by the Party Animals, the villainous, scruffy-looking anti-heroes who are sometimes part of the gags. That arrangement leads some fans to believe it’s like watching the Harlem Globetrotters take on their hapless basketball foils, the Washington Generals. That actually isn’t a good comparison because “Banana Ball’’ isn’t staged — outside of the dance routines — and the Party Animals win about half of the time. Plus, each Bananas game features new routines, some of which are conceived and rehearsed hours before the first pitch.

But the overall entertainment value is a certainty. As part of the fan-participation tradition, players will lead the entire stadium in a rendition of the high-energy “Hey Baby’’ song. Afterward, on the plaza, the highly accessible players are available for autographs, photos and dancing (music cranks up to an even higher level for the postgame).

It’s all in keeping with the statements on the Bananas’ website:

We Make Baseball Fun.

Fans First. Entertain Always.

It’s all the brainchild of Jesse Cole, the team’s owner who dresses in a yellow tuxedo (with a matching yellow top hat). Once he was a pitcher for Wofford College, a professional prospect who suffered a career-ending injury. As he transitioned into coaching, he realized that he hated the sometimes-plodding pace of baseball and felt the game needed a pick-me-up to keep the interest of fans.

Cole, whose inspirational mentors include Walt Disney and PT Barnum, also worked as a minor-league baseball executive who experimented with every version of outlandish promotions to attract attention. The Banana Ball phenomenon is the result of Cole’s push-the-envelope style, hitting the right chords on social media and doing everything to appeal to fans.

“If you come to our games, it’s guaranteed that you’re going to have fun … and we figure the world can use a little more fun,’’ said Cole, whose team was the subject of a five-part ESPN documentary, while being featured on CBS This Morning, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel and newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.

Cole, a highly sought-after speaker, has written three books, including the upcoming “Banana Ball: The Unbelievably True Story of the Savannah Bananas’’ (along with Don Yaeger, the New York Times best-selling author), which will be released in May.

With all of that exposure, Tampa faced a fierce competition to attract the Bananas, who will play Saturday’s game against a team of Major League Baseball alumni. But working with a partnership between the Tampa Bay Sports Commission and the New York Yankees, the Bananas announced last fall the Tampa was among the 33 World Tour cities.

Want to see a real competition? Check out the merchandise stands at Steinbrenner Field. The wildly popular Bananas caps, T-shirts, hoodies and jerseys are in high demand. Generally, the stacks of inventory are gone by the end of the night.

The future? The Bananas are drawing sellouts at minor-league stadiums and Cole has his eye on performing at major-league parks. When the time is right, the Bananas have a standing offer to play at Boston’s Fenway Park. Cole also envisions a theme-park attraction at the team’s home base of Savannah, Georgia, along with Banana-themed cruises where players and fans travel together, then stage games at each island destination.

“The most important thing is our next game and having the best possible performance each night out,’’ Cole said. “We’re always performing before someone who is seeing us for the first time. We want to provide the most action-packed, fun event in sports. It’s a real thrill to go to Tampa, where we’ve never played before, and we can’t wait."