America goes bananas for Savannah Bananas baseball!
Based in 2016, the exhibition workforce has grow to be well-liked for its personal high-energy, fan-focused spin on the game often called Banana Ball, that sees gamers, coaches, and umpires escape into elaborate dance routines, musical performances and circus-like antics in the midst of a aggressive recreation.
In the previous few years, the Savannah, Georgia-based baseball workforce has soared in recognition; its movies have grow to be social media sensations and second baseman Jackson Olson is even joining this fall’s “Dancing with the Stars” cast.
The Savannah Bananas entertain the group throughout a recreation.
ABC Information
Watch “Disney Celebrates America: The Pursuit of Happiness” from 8 to 10 p.m. ET on Monday, June 29, on ABC. On this coast-to-coast occasion, Disney Parks and sights are the portal by way of which America’s best tales, triumphs and traditions are celebrated.
Jesse Cole, proprietor of the Savannah Bananas and the creator of Banana Ball, has since expanded his imaginative and prescient from one workforce into the six-team Banana Ball Championship League.
“To see the expansion and now have six groups taking part in all around the nation … to see hundreds of thousands of followers watching our video games by way of Disney and ESPN, is wonderful,” he instructed ABC Information’ primetime particular, “Disney Celebrates America: The Pursuit of Happiness.”
The Savannah Bananas workforce proprietor Jesse Cole makes introductions previous to a recreation between the Savannah Bananas and The Firefighters at Fenway Park on July 05, 2025 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Jaiden Tripi/Getty Pictures
Banana Ball’s 2026 tour will see them play 190 video games throughout 45 states, the place they’ll carry out to sold-out crowds of over 3 million followers.
“My first expertise with the Bananas … I used to be blown away. You could not take your eyes off the sector,” Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, instructed ABC Information.
“And the minute I noticed what they had been doing, I immediately linked it again to the Negro Leagues, and particularly the Indianapolis Clowns,” he stated.
Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, reveals ABC Information the museum in Kansas Metropolis, Missouri.
ABC Information
Kendrick’s expertise at that recreation would grow to be step one in the direction of an eventual partnership between the Bananas and the Negro League Baseball Museum.
Based in 1990 by a group of former Negro League gamers, the Kansas Metropolis, Missouri, museum is devoted to preserving and celebrating the wealthy historical past of Black baseball and its impression on the civil rights motion in America.
Kendrick famous how the Negro Leagues “had been born out of the ashes of American segregation.”
“That they had been shunned from the Main Leagues, not as a result of they weren’t proficient sufficient… however merely due to the colour of their pores and skin,” he stated. “So what did they do? They created a league of their very own.”
After the founding of the Negro Nationwide League in 1920, it shortly gained recognition with followers because it turned identified for its sooner, extra aggressive play type compared to Main League Baseball on the time.
Kendrick remarked that, “When you went to a Negro Leagues recreation, you could not go to the concession stand, since you would possibly miss one thing that you simply ain’t by no means seen earlier than.”
A type of groups, the Indianapolis Clowns, “basically turned the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball,” he stated, noting that gamers would typically gown up as clowns to entertain the group earlier than, throughout and after video games.
Teammates on the Indianapolis Clowns of the Nationwide Negro Leagues work out in {a photograph} round 1950 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Transcendental Graphics/Getty Pictures
The Clowns gained 4 championships within the Nineteen Fifties, however these titles had been set towards the backdrop of a historic shift within the Negro Leagues. After Jackie Robinson turned the primary African American participant recruited to MLB in 1947, the recognition of the Negro Leagues fell, as followers adopted the most effective younger Black and Hispanic ball gamers to MLB.
In 1959, the Boston Pink Sox turned the final MLB workforce to combine, and by the early Nineteen Sixties, the Negro Leagues disbanded. It will take till 2020, the one hundredth anniversary of their founding, for MLB to formally elevate the Negro Leagues to Main League standing and incorporate the stats of its trailblazers into their document books, with the MLB calling it “lengthy overdue recognition.”
“The Bananas visited the museum in 2022,” Kendrick stated. “And when Jesse noticed the small show that we’ve got on the [Indianapolis] Clowns, I feel that is when the epiphany occurred.”
After studying the historical past of the Clowns, Cole recalled feeling that extra individuals wanted to know this story.
“So why not deliver them again?” he stated.
Jesse Cole, proprietor of the Savannah Bananas and the creator of Banana Ball, speaks with ABC Information.
ABC Information
With the creation of the Banana Ball Championship League and two new enlargement groups added in 2026, Cole selected to honor baseball’s previous by paying tribute to the Negro Leagues by way of the rebirth of the Indianapolis Clowns.
“We wish to ensure that each single Clown that ever wore that jersey is happy with what we’re doing,” Cole stated.
Clowns pitcher Nick Wilson lately found that his grandfather performed in a Negro League.
Indianapolis Clowns participant Nick Wilson speaks with ABC Information.
ABC Information
He mirrored that, “It is simply unreal and unbelievable to have the ability to keep on this type of legacy.”
Former World Collection champion and present Clowns middle fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. added, “It is a accountability and a privilege to not solely honor those earlier than us, however to … be capable of cross on to the subsequent technology, as nicely.”
Former MLB champion and present Indianapolis Clowns participant Jackie Bradley Jr. speaks with ABC Information.
ABC Information
As Kendrick sees it, “The story of the Negro Leagues may have solely occurred in America … whereas America was making an attempt to stop them from sharing within the joys of its nationwide pastime, it was the American spirit that allowed them to persevere and prevail.”
“It is a narrative that transcends race, it transcends age, it transcends gender,” he stated. ” … And I am thrilled … as a result of the historical past has come again to life.”
ABC Information’ Jhasua Scicchitano and Sebastian Leyva contributed to this report.
