Thousands in South Jersey are adorned in the yellow gear — shirts, hats, gloves, foam fingers, the works — of the social media phenomenon.
Some fans have been outside Trenton Thunder Ballpark since the morning, standing in the blazing sun. Eating hot dogs. Sipping beers. Buying merchandise. Playing catch. Thousands in South Jersey are adorned in the yellow gear — shirts, hats, gloves, foam fingers, the works — of the social media phenomenon that has been embraced like a favorite band; in town for one night only.
The team’s marching band joins the festivities. Players come out for autographs and photographs, then perform a choreographed dance to “Hey! Baby.” The gates open after a countdown from 11 because 10 is too boring. Fans sprint up the stairs. The 6,440-seat stadium is standing-room only. The lines for merchandise seem to stretch to Delaware.
Cole — the ringleader, sporting a yellow tuxedo and top hat — the players and the pep band march through the concourse. One fan is given a judge’s robe and authorization to challenge a play in the game. It has a two-hour time limit. A running clock is displayed on the scoreboard. During the first at-bat, Bananas pitcher Jared Donaldson intentionally throws behind Trenton’s Anthony Fontana.
“I was coaching in the Cape Cod League, I have the best seat in the house and I’m bored out of my mind,” Cole said. “I looked and said, ‘What are the boring parts of baseball? How can we get the fans involved? How can we change the game so no fan would ever want to leave early? If we could start from scratch, how would we do it?’ He created Banana Ball, the most drastic procedure ever performed on America’s pastime.
“We were in North Carolina and a 10-year-old kid caught a hard line drive that ended the game for us to win,” first baseman Dan Oberst said. “Imagine being that kid. That’s gonna stick with that kid the rest of his life. He was a hero in that moment.” The scoreboard tallies hits, runs and trick plays. Shortstop Ryan Cox found inspiration from the AND1 Mixtapes and has performed more than 100 tricks on this tour. Matt Wolf has thrown 18 different pitches. Center fielder DR Meadows backflips while catching fly balls. Cole comes up with 10 new ideas every day. Coaches and players also contribute in “Saturday Night Live”-inspired meetings, with pitch sessions, scripts and rehearsals, which require hours of fine-tuning before each game.
After helping attendance explode in Gastonia, N.C., Cole and his wife, Emily, turned their attention to historic Grayson Stadium in Savannah, Ga., which had lost its minor league team. They believed their model would thrive in a bigger market, so much so that they sold their home, emptied their bank accounts and slept on an air mattress upon founding the franchise in 2016. Noah K.
The Bananas played in collegiate summer baseball’s Coastal Plain League, winning titles in 2016, 2021 and 2022. But the future of the franchise took shape in 2019, when Cole introduced Banana Ball to his former coaches at Wofford, who oversaw a field test with their players.
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