Savannah Bananas | |
---|---|
Information | |
Location | Savannah, Georgia |
Ballpark | Grayson Stadium |
Founded | 2016 |
League championships | 3 (2016, 2021, 2022) |
Former league(s) | Coastal Plain League (2016–2022) |
Colors | Navy blue, green, yellow, and white |
Mascot | Split |
Ownership | Fans First Entertainment (Jesse & Emily Cole) |
Coach | Reginald Horton, Adam Virant |
Manager | Tyler Gillum |
Website | thesavannahbananas |
The Savannah Bananas are an exhibition barnstorming baseball team based in Savannah, Georgia. [1] The team was founded in 2016 and has played at Grayson Stadium since its inaugural season. Until 2022, the Bananas competed as a collegiate summer baseball team in the Coastal Plain League's (CPL) West division, [2] where they won three Petitt Cup championships (2016, 2021, and 2022). [1] However, after the growth of their alternate "Banana Ball" format, the team transitioned entirely to exhibition games against their partner touring teams, the Party Animals, the Firefighters, and other "challenger" professional teams, similar to the decades-long format of basketball's Harlem Globetrotters and their partner touring team, the Washington Generals. [3] The team has been featured by ESPN, The Wall Street Journal , CNN 10, and Sports Illustrated because of its on-field hijinks and viral videos. [4] [5]
Following the departure of the South Atlantic League's Savannah Sand Gnats for Columbia, South Carolina, on September 22, 2015, the Coastal Plain League (CPL) announced Savannah as its newest team to begin play for 2016. On February 25, following a name-the-team contest, the Bananas name, logo and colors were officially revealed by the team. [6] [7]
In 2016, the Bananas ended their inaugural season as the first seed in the CPL West Division, earning home-field advantage for the first two games of the playoffs. In game one, the Bananas beat the Asheboro Copperheads, 3–2, with the first walk-off in franchise history. The Bananas then defeated the Forest City Owls, 2–0, to win the CPL West Division championship and advance to the Petitt Cup Championship. Game one of the championship was played at Grayson Stadium, where the Bananas defeated the Peninsula Pilots, 8–4. The team traveled to Hampton, Virginia, where the Pilots' 4–3 win in game two forced an all-or-nothing game three. The Bananas took home the Petitt Cup after a 9–7 win in game three. [8] The Bananas were named the league's organization of the year in both 2016 and 2017.
Following the 2022 summer league season, the Bananas announced they were folding their collegiate amateur team and only playing "Banana Ball." [1] An ESPN+ miniseries about the team, called Bananaland, was released in August 2022. [9] [10] As of 2023, the team has over six million followers on TikTok, more than any MLB team. [3]
The Bananas announced their first "world tour" called the One City World Tour, where they traveled to Mobile, Alabama, and sold out both nights in Hank Aaron Stadium, with a combined crowd of over 7,000 fans. [11]
The Bananas added six more cities across four different states to the tour, creating a 14-game "world tour" in which all games were sellouts. [12] While the majority of Banana Ball games feature the Bananas versus the rival Party Animals (similar to the relationship between the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals), the Bananas introduced a "Challenger Series" in which they play against a different opponent. The first such series was played May 5–6 against the Kansas City Monarchs of the American Association of Professional Baseball and saw each team win one game. [13]
The "world tour" was expanded to over 80 games, [14] with the team implementing their new exhibition-only status. The tour was scheduled to start at The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches in Florida on February 17 and end seven months later at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, New York. [15] The tour also includes numerous challenger games against teams such as the Charleston Dirty Birds, Southern Maryland Blue Crabs, Florence Y'alls, The MLB Players Alumni Association, and a rematch with the Kansas City Monarchs. Additionally, the Bananas played their first international opponent, the Aussie Drop Bears, a team from Australia featuring professional and collegiate players. [16]
The "world tour" kicked off its 2024 season at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Florida on February 8th and was scheduled to end eight months later at LoanDepot Park in Miami, followed by a trip on a cruise ship to The Bahamas called “Bananaland at Sea”. The tour also included 5 other MLB ballparks including Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas, Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Progressive Field in Cleveland, Ohio.
The 2021 exhibition series in Mobile was the debut of what was then called the Premier Team, the exhibition Banana Ball team under the Bananas umbrella to differentiate from the collegiate team that played in the CPL. This team was a mix of both alumni of the CPL squad and new hires from independent leagues, colleges and Minor League Baseball. Following the disbandment of the CPL team in 2022, the Premier Team became the basis of the barnstorming and exhibition Bananas team, more known by their yellow uniforms carried on from the former CPL team. They are the flagship team of the wider organization.
During the 2020 shortened Bananas CPL season, the organization debuted what would be the second of the current three teams during the test Banana Ball games at home - the Party Animals, more known today by their black or pink uniforms. Previously, the test Banana Ball games were played as scrimmage games of the CPL Bananas pre-season. The creation of the team gave the Bananas a true home or away opponent in its exhibition gamedays during most of the season.
Debuting on October 5, 2023, as part of the 2024 season launch night, the Firefighters - with their bright red uniforms - are the newest and youngest Banana Ball club under the wider Bananas umbrella, slated to make their official debut in the 2024 season. [17]
The Savannah Bananas have deviated from standard baseball rules in creating the "banana ball" format. [18] This format has been used since June 2020 at home and for most touring exhibition games. Refinements have been made over time—the challenge rule was introduced in 2023. The current "banana ball" rules are, as amended: [19]
Other non-standard baseball activities are sometimes used for entertainment purposes. For example, an August 2023 game featured an at bat where the pitcher and batter played rock paper scissors before each pitch: each time the pitcher won, the batter had to bat from the opposite side of home plate as he normally would, and each time the batter won, the pitcher needed to announce what type of pitch he was about to throw. Other entertainment includes elaborate walk-ups starting from the stands, in-game dances, and run celebrations.
The Bananas recorded over 500,000 total fans in attendance on their Banana Ball World Tour in 2023. [20] The 2023 Banana Ball World Tour had 87 games in 33 different cities across the country.
In baseball, an at bat (AB) or time at bat is a batter's turn batting against a pitcher. An at bat is different from a plate appearance. A batter is credited with a plate appearance regardless of what happens during their turn at bat, but a batter is charged with an at bat only if that plate appearance does not have one of the results enumerated below. While at bats are used to calculate certain statistics, including batting average and slugging percentage, a player can qualify for the season-ending rankings in these categories only if they accumulate 502 plate appearances during the season.
In baseball, an earned run is any run that was fully enabled by the offensive team's production in the face of competent play from the defensive team. Conversely, an unearned run is a run that would not have been scored without the aid of an error or a passed ball committed by the defense.
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding team, called the pitcher, throws a ball that a player on the batting team, called the batter, tries to hit with a bat. The objective of the offensive team is to hit the ball into the field of play, away from the other team's players, allowing its players to run the bases, having them advance counter-clockwise around four bases to score what are called "runs". The objective of the defensive team is to prevent batters from becoming runners, and to prevent runners' advance around the bases. A run is scored when a runner legally advances around the bases in order and touches home plate.
In baseball, a home run is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run is usually achieved by hitting the ball over the outfield fence between the foul poles without the ball touching the field.
In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw a walk. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the pitcher is assigned the number 1. The pitcher is often considered the most important player on the defensive side of the game, and as such is situated at the right end of the defensive spectrum. There are many different types of pitchers, such as the starting pitcher, relief pitcher, middle reliever, lefty specialist, setup man, and the closer.
Throughout the history of baseball, the rules have frequently changed as the game continues to evolve. A few common rules most professional leagues have in common is that four balls is a base on balls, three strikes is a strikeout, and three outs end a half-inning.
In baseball, a pitcher can commit illegal motions or actions that constitute a balk. Most of these violations involve pitchers pretending to pitch when they have no intention of doing so. In games played under the Official Baseball Rules that govern professional play in the United States and Canada, a balk results in a dead ball or delayed dead ball. In certain other circumstances, a balk may be wholly or partially disregarded. In the United States, under the National Federation of State High School Associations, a balk results in an immediate dead ball. In the event a balk is enforced, the pitch is generally nullified, each runner is awarded one base, and the batter (generally) remains at bat with the previous count. The balk rule in Major League Baseball was introduced in 1898.
Pesäpallo is a fast-moving bat-and-ball sport that is often referred to as the national sport of Finland and has some presence in other places including Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, and Canada's northern Ontario. It is similar to brännboll, rounders, lapta, and baseball.
Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark opened in 1998 in downtown Oklahoma City's Bricktown Entertainment District, replacing All Sports Stadium. It is the home of the Oklahoma City Baseball Club, the Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers Major League Baseball team. The park has seating for up to 13,066 fans and currently utilizes a seating capacity of 9,000 for OKC games.
Baseball scorekeeping is the practice of recording the details of a baseball game as it unfolds. Professional baseball leagues hire official scorers to keep an official record of each game, but many fans keep score as well for their own enjoyment. Scorekeeping is usually done on a printed scorecard and, while official scorers must adhere precisely to one of the few different scorekeeping notations, most fans exercise some amount of creativity and adopt their own symbols and styles.
The Coastal Plain League (CPL) is a wood-bat collegiate summer baseball league, featuring college players recruited from throughout the nation. The league takes its name from the Class D level Coastal Plain League which operated in the area from 1937 to 1952.
The Florence Flamingos are an amateur baseball team that plays in Florence, South Carolina. The Flamingos are part of the Coastal Plain League, the collegiate summer baseball league located in the American Southeast.
In the sport of baseball, small ball is an informal term for an offensive strategy in which the batting team emphasizes placing runners on base and then advancing them into scoring position for a run in a deliberate, methodical way. This strategy places a high value on individual runs and attempts to score them without requiring extra base hits, or sometimes without base hits at all, instead using bases on balls, stolen bases, sacrifice bunt or sacrifice fly balls, the hit-and-run play, and aggressive baserunning with such plays as the contact play. A commonly used term for a run produced playing small ball is a "manufactured run". This style of play was more often found in National League game situations than in the American League due in large part to the absence of the designated hitter in the National League until the universal adoption of the Designated Hitter.
In athletics terminology, barnstorming refers to sports teams or individual athletes who travel to various locations, usually small towns, to stage exhibition matches. The term is primarily used in the United States. Barnstorming teams differ from traveling teams in that they operate outside the framework of an established athletic league, while traveling teams are designated by a league, formally or informally, to be a designated visiting team.
Half-rubber, also known as halfball or halfies, is a bat-and-ball game similar to stick ball or baseball. The game was developed in the American South around the beginning of the 20th century, moving north with the Great Migration in New York City and Philadelphia where it was widely played by the 1950s in addition to stick ball. It can be played with as few as three players and involves no running of bases.
The Macon Bacon is a Georgia based wood-bat collegiate summer baseball team that began playing in the Coastal Plain League (CPL) in 2018. They have appeared in the league playoffs twice, and finished as the runner-up after a Championship appearance in their second season.
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport that has many recreational variants. The major sport most related to baseball is the Olympic discipline of softball, with the two sports being administered internationally alongside Baseball5 by the World Baseball Softball Confederation.
In baseball statistics, exit velocity (EV) is the estimated speed at which a batted ball is travelling as it is coming off the player's bat. Batters generally aim for a higher exit velocity in order to give opposing fielders less time to react and attempt a defensive play; however, many batters are still able to accrue hits without a high exit velocity. A pitcher will attempt to limit the exit velocity on the opposing batter's contact in order to allow the fielders or themself a better chance at making an out.