Savannah Bananas baseball team to visit Chicago in 2025

CHICAGO -- The Savannah Bananas, the unconventional independent baseball team that has become a nationwide phenomenon, will take its unique brand of "Banana Ball" to 18 Major League Baseball stadiums and three football stadiums in 2025, it was announced Thursday.

Owner Jesse Cole said sellouts are expected at each of those venues, which includes Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago.

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"We played in front of 1 million fans this past year," Cole told ESPN. "We're playing in front of 2 million fans next year. Maybe that sounds boastful, but our waitlist is at 3 million right now."

The Bananas will be joined by the Party Animals, the Firefighters and a new team, the Texas Tailgaters, during a 39-game tour that runs from March to September.

The team will be in Chicago on August 15 and 16, according social media posts announcing their schedule.

The football stadiums that will host tour stops are Memorial Stadium (Clemson), Nissan Stadium (Tennessee Titans) and Bank of America Stadium (Carolina Panthers).

The Bananas will also play two games each in the home ballparks of the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago White Sox, Colorado Rockies, Washington Nationals, Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Angels, Atlanta Braves, Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins.

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The visits were announced Thursday night during the organization's annual "world tour city draft" on YouTube, after which fans were able to enter a ticket lottery through the team's website.

Banana Ball made its way to six MLB stadiums this year -- Miami, Philadelphia, Boston, Houston, Cleveland and Washington -- and drew massive crowds at each venue, with tens of thousands of fans showing up hours early to take part in pregame festivities. Prominent former major leaguers such as Ryan Howard, Roger Clemens, Jamie Moyer, Shane Victorino, Corey Kluber, Jonny Gomes and Josh Reddick played in those games.

"Now as we go out to these major league stadiums, we're getting reached out to by a lot more former stars -- All-Stars, World Series champions, MVPs -- that want to be a part of it," Cole told ESPN. "It's just wild."

The experimental phase of Banana Ball, born out of a desire to quicken the pace of baseball games and keep fans engaged throughout them, began a little more than five years ago. It is now played year-round by the Savannah Bananas and their affiliated teams.

The concept is comprised of 11 rules. Stepping out of the batter's box results in a strike, and bunt attempts warrant an ejection. Mound visits are not allowed. Each inning exists as its own entity, and games are limited to two hours. Fans are allowed to challenge calls and can record an out by catching foul balls.

Instead of a traditional walk, batters sprint around the bases on a fourth ball and continue to advance until the defensive team throws the baseball to every fielder. In the event of a passed ball or a wild pitch, batters can "steal first," regardless of the count. A one-on-one showdown is staged in lieu of extra innings, whereby the field empties except for one fielder, the pitcher and his catcher, and the batter attempts an inside-the-park home run upon putting the ball in play.

An 11th rule -- "golden batter" -- was recently introduced, allowing each team one opportunity to deploy any hitter from any spot in the lineup.

Cole's idea book for Banana Ball is now part of an exhibit that was unveiled at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, in September 2023. Thursday's string of announcements included the formation of the Banana Ball Championship League, which will begin in 2026 and consist of six teams, with Cole's goal to eventually "take Banana Ball all over the world."

"At first people were like, 'Well you're just the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball,'" Cole said. "I do take that as a compliment because the Globetrotters fundamentally changed the game of basketball, and they're going on 100 years.

"But we look at ourselves as, we're building a sport. We're building something for the future generations to have fun with and really create something truly special. That is where this dream gets much bigger."

In the fall of 2015, Cole and his wife, Emily, purchased the former Class A affiliate of the New York Mets based in Georgia to serve as a new collegiate summer league team. Their debt quickly grew to $1 million. They sold their home in North Carolina, emptied their savings accounts, moved to Savannah, Georgia, and immersed themselves in the arduous task of selling eccentric baseball to staunch traditionalists.

Momentum began to turn when their team mascot, the Bananas, was announced. The team's circuslike entertainment eventually made the Bananas a major draw. The team made games affordable and treated them like grand events, with players wearing kilts, performing choreographed dances and engaging in outlandish fan events. The Bananas soon began to regularly sell out Grayson Stadium, the century-old ballpark that once hosted Babe Ruth, and Banana Ball eventually became their year-round style of play.

Their brand has since grown exponentially.

"It's something I could've never imagined," said Cole, a former collegiate pitcher. "Walt Disney has been my biggest mentor forever. He said, 'It's kind of fun to do the impossible.' I just feel, in many ways, we are doing the impossible."

ABC7 Chicago contributed to this report.