Think Baseball Is Boring? The Savannah Bananas Are Here to Fix That.
The Daily
The Daily explores the phenomenon of the Savannah Bananas, an amateur baseball team that has become a cultural sensation by transforming tra
Key takeaways
- The Savannah Bananas have sold out 500 consecutive games and boast over 11 million TikTok followers—more than any Major League Baseball team.
- Their 'Banana Ball' rules prioritize entertainment over traditional baseball, including instant outs for foul balls caught by fans, sprint walks, and no bunting.
Main topics
- Savannah Bananas phenomenon
- Banana Ball rules and innovations
Notable quotes
"It's almost a circus quality of the game where you don't have to be a baseball fan to appreciate or enjoy it."
Conclusion
The Savannah Bananas represent a bold reimagining of sports entertainment—proving that baseball can
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:00) I'm Dani Blum. I'm a health reporter at The New York Times. We're bombarded with claims about how to live better and feel better. It's really hard to separate fact from fiction. I am scouring the science, speaking with leading experts, making sure that everything I write is rigorously researched, reported, and that I can back it up. When the science isn't clear, sometimes that is the story. That's a level of nuance and depth you're not going to get just floating around the internet. And it's what you get when you subscribe to The New York Times. Speaker 6 (0:30) From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitcheroleff. This is The Daily on Sunday. If Speaker 7 (0:40) I were to ask you, Speaker 6 (0:40) what is the only baseball team to ever sell out 500 consecutive games, what would you say? As a hint, they also have the most social media followers of any baseball team in America. Are you thinking maybe the championship-winning Los Angeles Dodgers? Speaker 5 (1:00) The New York Yankees? The Speaker 6 (1:05) storied Boston Red Sox? Nope. Speaker 6 (1:12) It turns out that by many metrics, the most popular baseball team in the world is a team that has never won a World Series, that has no future Hall Speaker 7 (1:23) of Famers on their roster. They Speaker 6 (1:24) don't even play professional baseball. They do sometimes dance to Miley Cyrus songs in between plays. Speaker 6 (1:40) Welcome to the Savannah Bananas. They started out as an amateur team based out of Savannah, Georgia, but they have quickly become a sensation. Touring the country, selling out stadiums, and going viral online with a show that's a little bit baseball, a little bit boy band concert, Speaker 5 (2:01) and Speaker 6 (2:04) a little bit Cirque du Soleil. Speaker 6 (2:12) Today on the show, I'm talking to my colleague and big-time baseball fan Jonathan Abrams, who's covered the Bananas, about the significance of this phenomenon. And then I get on a plane and go witness a Bananas game myself. Speaker 7 (2:26) Wow. Wow. Dude, that's actually crazy. It's Speaker 6 (2:33) Sunday, August 23rd. Speaker 6 (2:38) Jonathan Abrams, welcome back to The Daily. It's great to have you. Speaker 2 (2:41) Natalie, thanks so much for having me on. Speaker 6 (2:43) So I love baseball. I root for the Philadelphia Phillies, which is a cursed fate and involves a lot of pain and suffering. But I get the sense that the way I love baseball is different from the way you love baseball. So maybe you can just start by talking about why and how. You love baseball. Speaker 2 (3:08) Yeah, baseball is a sport that's just ingrained in me, Natalie. My mom likes to tell one of her favorite stories is that she was cleaning up and I was a baby. The television was on and she turned off the television and I started crying. It took her a few minutes before she actually figured out that she had to turn the television back on because the World Series was on. Wow. And I was an infant, couldn't talk, but was sitting there. watching the baseball game. So that fandom, that love for the game, it never left me. I'm 42 years old. I play in an old man baseball league. I have this big scar on my arm from foolishly diving for a foul ball a couple weekends ago. Good for you. I'm a diehard Dodgers fan. Much, much, much earlier than when they went on this run. Everybody complains about the Dodgers now, but I will say that before 2020, Dodgers hadn't won a World Series since... 1988. So it was a long drought that has been, I would say, adequately quenched at this point. Speaker 6 (4:08) Yeah, Speaker 2 (4:08) no Speaker 6 (4:08) one feels bad for you, Jonathan. Okay, so baseball, I think it's fair to say, is a little bit of a religion to you. What did you think when you first heard about the Savannah Bananas? Speaker 5 (4:23) This is not baseball. This is not just another night at the ballpark. Speaker 2 (4:31) Yeah, for me, seeing it initially from the outside, the Savannah Bananas seemed like it was something that wouldn't draw the attention of anybody who truly loved baseball. All this dancing and all the skits, and it seemed like an abomination to the sport. Speaker 5 (4:47) Ladies and gentlemen! Speaker 6 (4:54) So why did it seem like something you wanted to understand then? Speaker 2 (4:59) Because no matter what I thought of it, it was and is insanely popular. Guys, have you seen this team called the Savannah Bananas? They're a Speaker 5 (5:08) small team out of Georgia that's rewritten the rules of the game. Three single game the Bananas have played at home. Speaker 2 (5:14) It's been a Speaker 5 (5:15) sellout. I Speaker 2 (5:17) think the wait list to get into a Savannah Bananas game is over 4 million people, which makes it, if you think about it, it's harder to get into a Savannah Bananas game than to... go to a Super Bowl or to go to a Taylor Swift concert. In Speaker 5 (5:31) fact, the wait list, this is real, for tickets is up to two and a half million people. Speaker 2 (5:36) That's how much people are trying to get into these games. No, that's the problem. I can't get a ticket. The wait list is over three million people. And Speaker 5 (5:43) this is also real. My sister and I are on it. Speaker 2 (5:45) And online, their popularity is massive. They have more than 11 million followers on TikTok, so their online footprint is greater than any major league baseball team. Speaker 6 (5:58) Okay, I think we should pause here and just talk about what the Bananas are actually doing, baseball or not baseball. What is different about this sport? Speaker 2 (6:11) It's almost easier to talk about what's the same. There's a pitcher, there's a batter, there's guys in uniforms and wearing baseball hats. But there's so many tweaks that make this different from going to a regular baseball game. Speaker 5 (6:27) Banana Ball is the fastest and most entertaining show in sports. And the 11 rules guarantee the most fans-first experience every second. Speaker 2 (6:35) For example, if a batter hits a foul ball into the stands and the fan catches it, then that batter is out. Speaker 6 (6:47) That's nuts. Speaker 2 (6:49) There's sprint walks, so if a batter... gets walked, he gets to sprint the bases, and he gets to go for as long as he can until every defender touches the ball. Speaker 6 (6:59) Also nuts. Speaker 5 (7:00) Ball for sprint from Noah Bridges. He's going to test the Nanner sprint defense. Speaker 2 (7:05) You can't step out of the batter's box. That's an automatic strike. A lot of players in Major League Baseball take their time and step out of the box. And there's no bunting. Speaker 5 (7:15) Is he trying to bunt? Oh, no! Speaker 2 (7:17) If you bunt, you're thrown out of the game. Speaker 5 (7:20) Oh my goodness gracious. And we have an ejection. Let's dance! You Speaker 2 (7:28) have twerking umpires. You have a player on stilts who hits. You have somebody hit a home run with literally his bat on fire. What? Is Speaker 6 (7:40) that even possible? Speaker 2 (7:40) I didn't know it was possible until I saw it. And he did it. There's skits. There's choreographed dances. There is never a dull moment. Speaker 7 (7:55) All Speaker 2 (7:56) these quirks, it adds up to a lot faster paced game. And your head is on a swivel. There's something always going on. It's almost a circus quality of the game where you don't have to be a baseball fan to appreciate or enjoy it. Speaker 5 (8:10) Now Alex Ziegler coming up with the bat on fire. Bat tricks on display. Speaker 6 (8:17) And what is the goal of all of this, in theory? Speaker 2 (8:22) The goal of it is to be entertaining. Their motto is fans first. They want fans to be entertained from the very first pitch until the last. Speaker 6 (8:30) It sounds like they're trying to solve for something that I personally didn't really think needed to be fixed, but which I understand some people believe, which is that baseball can be a little boring. Speaker 2 (8:43) Yeah, you put it in words that kind of break my heart, but that has been a growing consensus amongst a younger generation of people today. They don't have the patience or the time to watch baseball dissected like I had during my youth. Speaker 6 (8:59) Yeah, I was going to ask, as a person who's spent quite a lot of time dissecting baseball, what do you think of the quality of the baseball that's being played here? Speaker 2 (9:09) It's good and it's legitimate. You see pitchers pitching in high 80s, low 90s. You see hitters hitting home runs all the time. Speaker 6 (9:17) And Speaker 2 (9:18) to Speaker 6 (9:18) be clear, these teams, they're playing competitively, right? Like the results here, they aren't pre-written. The team is actually trying to win. They're in a league, right? Playing against other teams? Speaker 2 (9:32) Yeah, there's five other official teams in Banana Ball. And they all travel around