The Greatest Show in Sports?
The Savannah Bananas prepare to bring their fast-paced brand of baseball to Philly’s Citizens Bank Park.
Playing professional baseball has always been a dream job for Doylestown native Matt Malatesta. Even so, he never imagined he would be pitching in front of thousands of fans at sold-out games across the country, where dancing players, twerking umpires, and breakdancing coaches have become the norm.
In 2021, Malatesta received a call to come out and pitch for the Savannah Bananas, a summer collegiate baseball team that was part of the Coastal Plain League (CPL). At that time, he was playing D2 baseball for the University of South Carolina Beaufort (USCB) and was thrilled to have the opportunity to play on the summer league team.
“It was such an incredible environment to be playing collegiate baseball down south,” says Malatesta. “I’ve been playing baseball my whole life, starting when I was around five years old playing T-ball, then playing with the Doylestown Athletic League, becoming a legion ball player, and pitching on my high school team at Archbishop Wood [in Warminster] before moving to Long Beach Island [New Jersey] during my senior year of high school, where I played varsity baseball and was a captain outfielder.”
He has fond memories of going to Phillies games with his father and dreaming of someday playing in the major leagues himself.
Malatesta attended Bloomsburg University, where he tried out to be a pitcher but didn’t make the team. He later transferred to Ocean County College, a community college in Toms River, New Jersey, where he served as a pitcher on the varsity baseball team before receiving a scholarship to play at USCB.
“The first time I pitched for the Savannah Bananas was during the CPL championship game, which was really intense, but it was [also] such an incredible environment,” he recalls. During that game the Bananas got the final out to become 2021 CPL Champions. Malatesta was asked to stay on for the 2022 season; the same year the Bananas left the CPL and went professional with their exhibition version of baseball, Banana Ball, after the college summer season.
The inspiration for Banana Ball came from team owner Jesse Cole, founder of Fans First Entertainment, who wanted to find a way to make the game of baseball more entertaining and fun for the fans. Cole and his wife, Emily, came up with the idea of having choreographed dances, a 30-piece pep band, players wearing kilts and walking on stilts, a senior citizen dance team called the Banana Nanas, a dad-bod cheerleading team (the Man-Nanas), and a plethora of trick plays to keep fans in the stands. Cole himself kicks off every game by appearing on the field in a bright yellow tuxedo and top hat, inspired by history’s ultimate showman, P.T. Barnum.
The team began playing Banana Ball at their home games at Grayson Stadium in Savannah, Georgia, beginning in June 2020. Despite selling out every home game and offering nonstop entertainment, fans were still leaving games early.
“We realized that the actual game of baseball is too long, too slow, and too boring,” says Cole. So he came up with a new set of rules that would make the game faster, include the fans, and create an entertaining and fun atmosphere.
The new rules have allowed the Bananas to come up with a more fast-paced, engaging version of baseball. Games have a two-hour time limit. If a fan catches a ball, it counts as an automatic out. In addition, there are no walks or bunts. Every inning is worth one point, rather than tallying up the number of runs for each inning. During the final inning, every run counts. Batters can’t step out of the batter’s box, but they can steal first base. And no mound visits are allowed. If a game is tied at the two-hour mark, there’s a showdown tie-breaker, where every hit is worth a point. If a player hits a home run over the outfield wall, it’s a walk-off win and the game ends.
The combination of the new rules and the constant on-field hijinks has been a recipe for the Bananas’ success. Since they took their show on the road, from their first One City World Tour at Hank Aaron Stadium in Mobile, Alabama, in 2021 to their 2023 33-city Banana Ball World Tour and the addition of six Major League Baseball stadiums this year—they’ll take the field at Citizens Bank Park on Saturday, September 21—they have sold out every game; they also have a waiting list of more than 2 million people, and a social-media following of more than 15 million strong.
“We’ve had a very simple goal since we started, and that’s to put fans first and make baseball fun,” says Cole. “We’re obsessed with the fan experience, down to every detail.”
For example, there are no ticketing fees, service, or convenience fees or taxes, and tickets cost a flat $35 for all Savannah Bananas games purchased directly through their lottery system.
Kyle Luigs, also known as “Cowboy Kyle,” due to his signature yellow cowboy hat, has played with the Bananas since 2018. He is thrilled at the opportunity to play at Citizens Bank Park.
“Outside of playing baseball at one of the biggest stadiums we’ll be visiting in 2024, I’m excited to see how we’ll be received by the Philadelphia fan base,” he says. “We’ve gone from playing in stadiums that had a capacity of 4,000 to 7,000 people when we first started to around 15,000 last year … to now playing in front of more than 40,000 fans.
“While the smaller stadiums have made it easier to have a more intimate experience for the fans,” he continues, “we’re looking forward to bringing the Banana Ball experience to a wider audience and excited to see how our version of baseball plays out in the larger arenas.”
For Malatesta, the Bananas’ trip to Philadelphia is bittersweet. This year he started playing for the Firefighters, one of Fans First Entertainment’s other exhibition teams, which also includes the Party Animals. While his new team won’t be visiting Philly this season, he did get the opportunity for a homecoming of sorts last summer when the Bananas played the Trenton Thunder at Trenton Thunder Ballpark, about 45 minutes from his hometown.
“Banana Ball has introduced the sport of baseball to a lot of new fans,” Malatesta says. “What I love most about this organization is that it’s creating a new wave of baseball players who just enjoy the game. … Just giving people the opportunity to get a better understanding of baseball, and showing them that it can be fun, has been awesome.”
Photo courtesy of the Savannah Bananas
Published (and copyrighted) in Suburban Life magazine, August 2024.
