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Is Baseball Boring? Ask the Savannah Bananas · Sports In America with David Greene

• DAVID GREENE, HOST: All right, I'm gonna start our show today with a pretty provocative question. Molly, is baseball boring?  MOLLY KNIGHT: Not anymore. Not anymore. DG: Not anymore? MK: It used to be. It used to have a big problem. I wanna say 10-ish years ago, if you hit a home run and you celebrated it a little too much, you would be in trouble with the fun police, and they would throw a baseball at your head or your butt. (Laughs) And it sucked, it did, it was awful. And you know, we have. It's like the NFL has touchdown dances, the NBA has slam dunks. MLB had a bunch of fun police. That era is blessedly over. DG: Amazing. MK: So we're back. We're back! DG: We're back! Baseball's back. This is the kind of stuff that we cover here on Sports in America. I am with Molly Knight. She is a writer and journalist. She covers a lot of sports, including the Los Angeles Dodgers. She's written for ESPN and Vanity Fair, and you can catch her Substack, The Long Game. And you're just the right person to have answered this question for me because I've never thought that baseball is boring, but it does feel like we've gone through this phase in recent years, where baseball has been like trying to overcome some image problem of being a boring sport.  MK: Yes, and they have done some things to fix that. They introduced the pitch clock. The thing is, it got too long because, guys, pitchers would just stand there for like two full minutes trying to figure out what pitch to throw next. And it's like... DG: But isn't that part of it, like they're just getting, they're like thinking it through, they're contemplating, they're gearing up, I don't know, I never minded it, I thought it was like an emotional experience to just watch a pitcher kind of zen think.  MK: I mean, as a writer, I minded it because I was sitting in the press box for four-hour games, I mean, on top of getting to the stadium four hours early and then having to stay, you know, two hours late to write stories, and fans were bored. People just, my friends, didn't want to go because they thought the games were too long and boring. There wasn't enough action. There'd be just like 10 minutes would go by before a ball was actually put in play. DG: Yeah. MK: And also, I think it was hard on the fielders. They'd just stand there with ants in their pants waiting for something to happen. I think the first year was an adjustment when they introduced the pitch clock. I think it felt a little bit fast and a little bit frantic. It was like, oh gosh, I get up to go to the bathroom, and two innings have passed, you know? But now I think we're all locked in, and it's an easy sell to get my friends to go to baseball games because they're all like two to two and a half hours now.  DG: I am finding it's easier to tell people to come to baseball games with me and to even watch them on television, which I have a lot of friends who were like, never would have been caught in front of a TV during a baseball game ever. For our audience who's not up to speed, like it was 2023, right? Major League Baseball put in this pitch clock, which requires pitchers to pitch every, what is it? 15 seconds? MK: Yeah, I mean, there's a little bit of a grace period depending on, I mean, you know, if somebody fouls a ball off their foot or if the pitchers, you know, something happens and someone might be injured or having an issue, equipment issue, the umpires will give a little bit of a grace period. But yes, you have to; the pitch clock starts, and the batter has to, this also is on the batter too. The batter can't just step out of the box every time and do the little OCD rituals of changing his, you know.  DG: Fix your elbow guard and like... MK: Yes, yes, yes. DG: Take your helmet on and off, and do whatever.  MK: Yes. The batter has to make eye contact with the pitcher, and the pitcher has to begin his delivery by the time the pitch clock is down to zero, or else a ball is called. Now you can call timeout. You get like, I think you get one timeout per at-bat. I'm frankly still getting used to all the rules, but it just makes for a much more enjoyable pace. And baseball used to be played this way naturally. Games used to be, in the 80s and even in the 70s, 80s, 90s, they used to be around two and a half hours, maybe a little bit longer, and then it just got out of control.  DG: What happened? Did pictures just start like taking their time more?  MK: Yeah, I think there was just information overload. I think these guys have been exposed to so much data and analytics, and where does this pitcher like the ball, or this hitter like the ball? What do I throw at a one-two count? A lot of overthinking, which also never leads to anything good in baseball or in life. DG: I guess that's true. Yeah, wow. MK: So that, and then they also, you can't, if a runner's on first base, you can't throw over there 10 times in a row anymore. You only get to, you get two disengagements, which means you can step off the rubber twice. And then the third time you do it, if you don't get the guy out, he's awarded second base or third base. So you can't just be, and I know, like, I would love to see that in the World Series, right? Like, you know, like a Ricky Henderson type or a Shohei Otani, a base dealer on first base and a battle with a pitcher, like that's fine. But like in April, in a game between the Twins and the White Sox, llike, I don't need to see that. I don't need 15 throwovers at that point in a 9-1 game.  DG: No offense to the Twins and White Sox.  MK: Sorry, actually, you know what, the Twins are, I think they're in first place, although I may have jinxed them.  DG: Oh, I may have jinxed them. MK: Yeah. Sorry. DG: I just can't let go of this whole thought experiment of the pitch clock in our lives that makes you just sort of keep never overthinking and maybe getting punished for overthinking. I don't know, there's something, I think it's like a gift that we could all use more of.  MK: I mean, they had to do it too, just because everyone's attention span is down to like six seconds. So that was a big problem for them in reaching younger audiences, right? Because younger audiences want, they're watching clips, they're scrolling TikTok, and they're on Snapchat and Instagram and all that, and they don't wanna sit somewhere and wait 10 to 20 minutes for someone to, for any kind of action to happen. Like they're just gonna be bored. DG: Oh, that's interesting, so this was like a really important business decision for Major League Baseball if they want to keep younger audiences engaged and coming to games  MK: Yes, yes. And also with the embracing of player personalities and letting them have their fun and celebrate their home runs and wear cool cleats and all of that. It's entertainment at the end of the day. And I think it has very much been influenced by the popularity of the Savannah Bananas. People want joy. They want escapism. They wanna have fun. They don't wanna be going to some like event that feels like. I don't know, that feels dull and performative and militaristic, they want excitement.  DG: Yeah, well, I mean, it's not just the pitch clock, right? They also, I mean, tell me if I have this right, they made the bases bigger, which is giving players more chance to successfully steal. MK: Yes. DG: So you're seeing that excitement happen more often in games, which has been really fun. I mean, you get, you see it, you know, a speedy hitter get on first, and I'm just like, okay, he's gonna be in scoring position in like 10 seconds.  MK: Yeah, and also with that coupled with the limitations on the pitcher being able to throw over because once he throws over twice, he's really not allowed to throw over again unless he gets him out, so he's probably not gonna...  DG: Which gives the runner the chance to get a bigger lead and not have to worry about being picked off, yeah.  MK: But the bigger bases, I think, are my favorite. So genius because I think it also helps with injury prevention because there's more space. So when the bases are bigger, that means that hopefully it reduces the odds that somebody running to first base will accidentally step on the first baseman's foot or ankle and roll an ankle. It feels like, oh my god, this idea is so good. Why didn't I think of it? Like, I was like this, it was right there the whole time, and I love it. I think the change to the game, I've been critical about a lot of the stuff that they've done lately with the embrace of gambling. That sucks, but these rules have been fabulous.  DG: I mean, really simple question, Molly. I mean, you've written about baseball for a long time. You wrote a book, "The Best Team Money Can Buy," about the Dodgers. Like, what have you always loved and what do you still love about the sport?  MK: Oh, it's something new every day. Well, I think I'm probably a little bit neurodivergent or a lot neurodivergent. In that when I was seven years old, I got a bag of baseball cards, and I looked at the back and thought, I saw statistics, and they organized them all by their batting average and their positions and all that, and then I had my Barbies too. And it was funny because my friends would come over to play with my Barbies, but no one really wanted to play with me with my baseball card. So I was doing that alone a lot, but it taught me how to alphabetize. It taught me numbers. And I just love the everyday-ness of it. I think especially in our increasingly isolated society, we miss monoculture events. And for me, it's like so many of my friends are huge Dodger fans or huge baseball fans in general. And I know, like I might be at my house by myself watching the game, but they're watching the games, and we're texting about it, and it's happening in real time. Like that doesn't really happen anymore because people stream their favorite TV shows, not necessarily there's no appointment viewing anymore. And so I think it is really, it is a huge fabric holding our society together still. And just, there's just something about it. It's just, I can't, it's hard to explain. It's a constant companion. And I found. I've had some friends going through some really hard stuff this year in particular, and it is something that is always there. And it is something, your friend may be going through the worst time of their life, and you can take them to a ball game, and maybe for five minutes, they forget about what's going on. And that is just so important, so important. And we didn't have it during COVID. When we needed it so badly, I think it brought it into focus for me how important it is to share those experiences with friends and family.  DG: Yeah, no, you're totally right. I do, I want to bring up one name you mentioned, the Savannah Bananas. They're not a major league team, but they are a franchise that has just become wildly popular, and we're actually gonna hear from their president in just a few minutes, but they have literally been a team and a movement, if I can call it that, that has centered the fan and turned baseball into pure entertainment. To a point where some people feel like they're making fun of baseball and the sport, but no one can deny their just stunning growth in popularity. Like, what do you take from that?  MK: People are starved for joy right now. People want to feel joy. And the Savannah Bananas are pure joy. And I love them so much. I think it's so fun. I think it engages children. I think it engages adults. I think it engages everyone. And I just, I think the, but I think that their success has exploded because things have gotten pretty dark in society in general, and people just, they want to feel, they want to feel like a kid again, they want to feel happy, and I just applaud that organization and everything that they've done. And I hope they continue to explode, and it's not the same thing as Major League Baseball, and everybody understands that, but I think the two complement each other well, and frankly, I tried to get Savannah Banana tickets, and it was really hard! DG: It's really hard, yeah. MK: You have to be on the mailing list, and I was, I snoozed. And then all of a sudden I'm realizing, you know, it's just, it's a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful thing, and a lot of guys who wind up going there, what makes, what really warms my heart is a lot of the guys who wound up playing for the Bananas were guys who played in the minors, but never made it, and so they still get to have a career doing this, doing this thing that they love. And it's, it just wonderful.  \[MUSIC\] DG: Yeah, I think it's been great for baseball, and coming up next, we're going to hear from their president and talk much more about this event of Bananas and what they've done for the sport and where they're going. But I want to thank you, Molly Knight. You can find her on Substack, The Long Game. She's also the author of "The Best Team Money Can Buy" about the LA Dodgers. As our listeners know, as a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, I do think that the Dodgers buy their success, but I also love them, and they're my second team now that I live in Los Angeles. So can't wait to keep reading all your stuff, Molly Knight, and I really appreciate you being here.  MK: Thanks so much, David.  DG: And we'll be right back with more Sports in America.   Welcome back to Sports in America, I'm David Greene.  BROADCASTER 1: What the heck is a chicken doing out here? Chicken Jerky! BROADCASTER 2: With the bat literally still on fire. BROADCASTER 3: You can dance, and you can jive; these boys certainly can. FAN: Major League Baseball is not quite anything like this. \[MUSIC\] JARED ORTON: People thought it was the biggest abomination on Earth, that we would come into this historic, beautiful, amazing city and stadium, and we were bringing, you know, the circus coming to town.  DG: When the Savannah Bananas first started back in 2016, President Jared Orton constantly heard people saying things like, "This must be a joke." "They're an embarrassment to the city," and "You'll never sell a ticket."  JO: We exist to make baseball fun, right? Some people might interpret that as making fun of baseball.  DG: I mean, they were doing baseball in a way we have never seen before. There's a senior citizen dance team, there's a dancing umpire, there's a pitcher on stilts. there's a banana baby and a whole bunch of surprise guests. The Savannah Bananas are completely reinventing what it means to go to a baseball game by putting the fans at the center of everything. That's why games never go past two hours. Also, why their players need to know how to hit a home run just as much as they can lip sync to their favorite songs?. JO: We want them to walk out the end of the night, put their hair on the pillow, and say, that was the most fun I've ever had in my life. That's what we're aiming after.  DG: This all might sound ridiculous, but when the Savannah Bananas has a wait list of over three million people waiting to get tickets to their games, it raises the question of what it actually means to put the fans at the forefront of a sporting experience. And in a country that lives and breathes baseball, what exactly does it take to reinvent America's favorite pastime?  Before he was president of the Savannah Bananas, Jared Orton was just a kid who dreamed of someday becoming a baseball player.  Where'd you grow up, and what was your childhood like, and was baseball involved?  JO: Yeah, I think, you know, as many who grew up in the southeast, so I grew up in Florida and then North Carolina. And, you know, I recall growing up and watching the Atlanta Braves, right, on the Super Station each night. And, you know, it was broadcast, whatever, six nights a week, you know, pretty much from Florida to North Carolina and everywhere in between. And, you know, I remember maybe once every couple of years, my family would take that pilgrimage, right, down to Atlanta and watch the Braves play. And I wore the. T-shirts and pretended to be Chipper Jones in the backyard and all those things, and then certainly loved the game of baseball growing up and playing, and just you know, imagining one day, right, I would be a professional baseball player as we all do, and then reality hits us square in the face. (Laughs) DG: (Laughs) What's that reality? What are you talking about? What held you back from being a professional baseball player?  JO: Oh my gosh, you know, I, people always ask me, you know, did you play baseball in college? I was well, a big difference between playing and being on the team. I tell them, you know, I was certainly on the team, I don't know if I played very much, but you know, I certainly fell in love with the idea of sports entertainment, and, you know, being on this side of the fence, right? I felt like my career might last a little bit longer on this side of the fence than it would on the field.  DG: I have a couple of confessions to make. One was I was the worst little league baseball player. I was so bad that my mom was the manager, and she did not put me in the starting lineup. And I asked her, I was like, "Mom, I just want you to know, I understand that you can't show favoritism and put your own kid in the starting lineup." And she was like, "Honey, it has nothing to do with favoritism or not favoritism. You're just not; you can't hit the ball ever." JO: That's it, that's it.  DG: My other confession is I am a diehard Pittsburgh Pirates fan, and I generally don't like talking to Atlanta Braves fans because the Braves ruined my childhood. 1992 and the Braves beating the Pirates in that Game Seven, I haven't recovered. Like I literally, it's been what, 30 plus years. So I just, I need to say that out loud to a Braves fan. Thank you for ruining my childhood  JO: That's incredible. I love that.  DG: Okay, so like me, Jared was not going to go to the big leagues anytime soon, but his dream of making baseball fun was just getting started. In college, he was known as the Fun Executive for a local minor league team, and he stayed in that world for a few years. But at just 24 years old, he'd be asked to do what nobody had ever dared to, change the game entirely.  All right, so you've been here since the inception of the Bananas. I mean, you've been here for the whole journey. How did you meet Jesse and Emily, the owners, and take me back to those early days?  JO: So it starts a little bit, kind of what we talked earlier, I realized pretty quickly I wasn't going to be a professional baseball player. And so I was at school in Charlotte there, right outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. And my baseball coach at the time when I was at Belmont Abbey was Scott Brickman, and he had coached Jesse Cole when Jesse was at Wofford. And so, I went to Coach Brickman and the crew there and said, look, thanks for letting me be on the team. You know, I don't think I'm going to be a professional baseball player. Obviously, you all know that more than I do, but I had done some work in minor league baseball, and I said, you know, "I love this idea of minor league baseball, sports entertainment, bringing people together, stadiums, you know, do y'all know anyone in the sports entertainment world?" And Coach Brickman kindly said, you know, "I used to coach this guy, Jesse Cole, you, I think he's running a team down the street in Gastonia. You should reach out and meet him." And so that was when we were literally running a college summer league team. If anyone follows Jesse's story, he was brought in as the general manager of that team when he was 23 years old. And so I reached out to Jesse and said,  "Hey, you don't know me, I don't know you, you have a mutual coach, and would love to just have a conversation." And he and Emily were gracious enough to have that conversation. It was just the two of them at the time running that little small college summer league team. I came in as the third person. I was the mascot, the ticket salesperson, the cleanup crew. You know, let me do anything and everything.  DG: Everything but actually playing.  JO: That's right, don't put me on the field. And I learned a lot that summer and that spring about just his vision of entertainment for baseball and dancing players, and salute to underwear night and grandma beauty pageants. And we tried it all, and it was so fascinating to see that lens. And as I went back to minor league baseball for a couple of years, we stayed in touch. And in 2015, the Savannah Sand Gnats here in Savannah, Georgia, announced that they were leaving Savannah for good and that the stadium here across the street at Grayson Stadium was gonna be empty. And I remember getting the call one day, and he said, "What do you think about starting a new baseball team in Savannah, Georgia?" And I said, "Sign me up." And we were pretty naive at that time to think that we were gonna be successful, but who would have thought that it would have become certainly anything remotely close to what it is today? Nada!  \[MUSIC\] DG: And so Jesse was kind of into this whole idea of entertainment and adding layers of entertainment to the experience. Did you see potential for that? Or was there part of you and part of other people who were like, I mean, baseball's got a long history of being baseball. Like, we don't need to mess with it.  JO: You know, I had been in that minor league mindset for a little bit of time, which, as most people know, there's the gimmicky names, and there's the , you know, the Star Wars nights and the princess nights and the fireworks and the bobbleheads and, you know, kind of crazy stunts that people have done. And I had understood that that was a part of what minor league sports was. Jesse's mindset was, yeah, but everyone's kind of doing that. Like, everyone's doing bobblehead nights and everyone's Star Wars nights and everyone's doing the mascot race, whatever. And so he said he wanted to focus on what the players, the players on the field, and like, could that be the differentiator? And I remember seeing the players doing Gangnam Style.  PSY: Gangnam Style! JO: Between the second and the third inning, and people losing their minds and seeing the players deliver roses to little girls in the crowd and dressing up in all like Paul Bunyan style uniforms one night, and just outrageous things that weren't, they weren't just the little gimmicky giveaway things, they were actually built into the game and the show and experience. And people certainly made fun of us when we came to Savannah. You know, long storied history. Baseball had existed in Savannah for 90 years, 1926 to 2015. And so we come in, and we say, we're gonna have a college summer team, and we're going to have dancing players, and you know, senior citizen beauty pageant. And we'd start naming all these things. And people thought it was the biggest abomination on earth, that we would come into this historic, beautiful, amazing city and stadium, and we were bringing the circus coming to town.  DG: These were like baseball purists who were like you're ruining a tradition of this great sport, and I mean, America's pastime. JO: Jesse's vision and it's still true to this day make baseball fun. That's been our North Star since day one. Let's make baseball fun. Some people might not understand how we do that, but we exist to make baseball fun. If we can compete and bring you fun and joy and happiness and excitement to people's lives through the avenue and vehicle of baseball, now Banana Ball, then that's something that no one else in the world we felt like was doing at that time  DG: How'd you come up with the Banana's name?  \[MUSIC\] JO: We, this is not new, obviously, but when we came to town, as all teams generally do in minor league sports, we started taking suggestions for, you know, what people wanted the team to be named. And there was all sorts of ridiculous things. You know, The Fist of Oglethorpe was one, and the, you know, The Fighting Pralines, I think, and The Angry Shrimp, The To-Go cups, if you've ever been to Savannah, that's quite the reference.  DG: Yeah, I love to go cups in Savannah. Good, good city to drink in the streets  JO: People don't know this, but Party Animals was one of the names which is now one of our alternate teams. And we strongly considered naming the team the Savannah Party Animals to start. We felt like that was actually, in a weird way, safer because it was something people could, you know, understand the connection. And Emily kept pushing on it. And Jesse, a little bit more, Savannah Bananas, Savannah Bananas. Savannah Bananas, and it just like, it makes so little sense. Like it actually kind of makes a lot of sense. I remember getting the, I remember getting the logo design sent to our email inboxes over Christmas. And I remember seeing the first draft and thinking we're gonna do it. We're gonna be the Savannah Bananas, and I showed my mom and dad the picture. And they were like, okay, I guess so. And I was like, oh no, even my parents think it's a terrible idea.  DG: Good luck, son.  JO: We're proud of you, sweetie, and we went with it. We felt like if we're gonna show people we're here to make baseball fun, we need to have the branding to associate with it, and that long-term commitment of, no, we're really gonna make baseball fun. And then we tied in all the, there's gonna be a mascot named Split, senior citizen dance team, Banana Nanas, you know, a little dance team called the Junior Splits in green outfits. We're gonna play in green uniforms the first night because we're not quite ripe. There's gonna a... and we were just on and on and on. Just like when we came to Savannah, and people didn't understand dancing players, they really didn't understand naming the team Bananas. But you know, that was the second abomination, and we just keep being misunderstood, you know, now 11 years later. But Savannah Bananas was something we said, we're really gonna put our stake down and say, let's make baseball fun.  DG: What is the misunderstanding you think people have?  JO: I believe the misunderstanding is we exist to make baseball fun, right? Some people might interpret that as making fun of baseball. And that can be different, and there's a fine line between making fun of someone or making fun of another thing, and we're just here to have fun. And so early on, some people would pit us against baseball and say, "Oh, so you're trying to take down baseball or Major League Baseball." It's like no, not at all. Love baseball. We just talked about you're a Pirates fan. I'm a Braves fan, I'll watch Braves games. We'll go to Braves game, but we believe there's a different category of fans. Some of them may like baseball, some of them might not, but that's okay; either way, we are here to create this entertainment version of baseball. It's still competitive, high stakes, high talent, high entertainment value, high touch experience, lots of things you've never seen before at a baseball stadium, where we want someone to leave our game. We want them to walk out the end of the night, put their head on the pillow, and say, that was the most fun I've ever had in my life. That's what we're aiming after. And so that's where sometimes a misunderstanding can come, but that's gonna be our North Star every single time.  \[MUSIC\] DG: These days, the Savannah Bananas are considered the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball. The Globetrotters have been around for 100 years, best known for their trick shots and high-flying dunks. They are both considered exhibition teams, meaning instead of playing for ranks or stats, they just do it for fun.  You know, is the Harlem Globetrotters an okay comparison? I mean, that's what I grew up with.  BROADCASTER: Hey, Baldy! Hey! Big easy for two!  DG: I also remember our first Globetrotters game. Like we were living in Kentucky. I remember where we went. We drove an hour or two to Southern Illinois, where the Globetrotters were doing a game, and that was like pure entertainment. And like, I felt, I don't know, like I felt like I could love both. I could love NBA basketball, and like a Globetrodters experience was pretty fricking cool. And like I remember laughing, and I mean, it was silly, and it was ridiculous, and it still basketball skill. I mean, is that an okay comparison?  JO: Yeah. They've been an inspiration for us for many years, you know, the Globetrotters and the PT Barnum, Barnum and Bailey, and WWE, and like there's all these, you know, different fits that are out there. The pivot we began to make was Globetrotters, you know, even back towards the 50s, 60s. They potentially had this runway of being the thing in sports and entertainment. Chose a different route, which doesn't mean they chose the wrong route or anything like that, but began, you know, kind of franchising the model. We felt like we could do that for a little bit, but perhaps from our perspective, that might become stale in the sense of the Savannah Bananas. And so we then pivoted and said, we need the Party Animals, but then we need a third team, and we need a fourth team. And this past year, we just added a fifth team and a sixth team. All different identities, all different brands, all different perspectives, you know, all different experiences that we're aiming to create. You know, it's not just the Bananas and five other dancing baseball teams, right? There needs to be different things that people experience each night. And then we said, the human mind, the human person cares more when something's on the line. That's why we love sports, right? It's why we love live sports, it's why we love championships, playoffs, and stakes and things like that. And a good story needs stakes, and people have to care.  DG: The Bananas are not a one-off novelty act. In 2024, they announced the Banana Ball Championship League. Not only did this mean they were officially done being a college summer team, but it meant that they got to play Banana Ball full-time. It also meant that they needed teams that knew how to play by their rules, and so they expanded. Now they officially have six teams in the league, including the Party Animals, the Texas Tailgaters, and Indianapolis Clowns. They even have their own version of the draft. And while the choreography and music choices are all predetermined, the one thing Jared and his team never mess with is the game itself.  JO: They'll be winners and losers, and the Bananas will win every single game, right? Maybe not even half the games. The Party Animals are really good. They won the championship, you know, kind of our tour championship last year. The Tailgaters are going to come on strong. The Indianapolis Clowns have Jackie Bradley Jr. the former World Series champion, All-Star Boston Red Sox. He's on the team of the Indianapolis Clowns. The Coconuts are coached part-time by Shane Victorino, and Ryan Howard is also helping coach the Clowns. Like, there's legitimate competition now. And there's still this level of show, entertainment, and fun. And we believe that when both could potentially come together, it'll be messy. But perhaps that is something even more than just, okay, I've seen it once. I don't need to see it again. People want to stay and see it all the way through year after year after year. DG: More from our conversation with Jared Orton, president of the Savannah Bananas, is coming up next on Sports in America.  This is Sports in America, and we are back with more from our conversation with Jared Orton, president of the Savannah Bananas.  It's interesting because you're dealing in this space where I hear you saying, like you are sports and entertainment, and it's like the entertainment could get stale at some point. You're constantly thinking about new ways to entertain, but like you, the beauty of sports is that you don't know what the outcome's gonna be. You're rooting for your team in a given year. Like you're, you know, you're compensating a little bit. You're bringing back some of the more sports, traditional competitiveness into this to keep it sustainable.  \[MUSIC\] JO: This past tour, we had our tour championship in Savannah. Bananas were playing the Firefighters, and they had gone through two games, and we decided to not do a third game. The third game would be this 1v1 showdown thing. Think of penalty kicks in soccer, but on the baseball field, right? Like, take all the players off the field, it's just 1v1. We decided that if a home run is hit during this 1v1 showdown, it's game over. Automatic winner. Walk off, no questions asked.  DG: Wow.  JO: And so we're at home.  BROADCASTER: The Firefighters have won back-to-back innings. We are tied at two.  JO: Dalton Cornett for the firefighters gets up there in front of the home crowd in Savannah, everyone on their feet. The bad guy, right? The visitors.  BROADCASTER: That ball demolished, Dalton Cornett sends the Firefighters to the 2025 Banana Ball Tour Championship Final!  JO: Dalton Cornett hits a home run, no doubter.  BROADCASTER: As the four seed upsets the one seed.  JO: And moves the Firefighters on to the championship game over the Bananas.  BROADCASTER: Dalton Cornet! The hero of the tour championship!  DG: That's it, he did it one-on-one, and he hit the home run, so like, game's over?  JO: Game over. People are crying, people are actually crying. I see children hands on their face grown men are screaming at us, "How could you let this happen?" DG: Because it's a sport! You haven't gone totally away from it being a sport; this is not just entertainment. You might be miserable if your team loses.  JO: We all got back together at the end of the night, you know, eating our post-game meal, and we were like, that was it. That was it! DG: So happy fans are miserable, and this is a good sign  JO: Yeah. And, you know, the same thing happened. We had our, we had a player draft this year, where, so, you know, Bananas, Party Animals, they have players who've been on their teams for a long time, but we've got new teams like the Coconuts and Indianapolis Clowns that are brand new. They need players. So, like, expansion draft style and fans were visibly hurt, you know, verbally upset, writing us messages, you know, distraught that their favorite player was no longer on this team and was going to move to another one. And there was real passion coming forth from folks in good taste, but it was kind of a reminder to us, like okay, this is, we need some of this. We need people to care. It needs to matter to them  DG: You're not just going to the circus. I mean, this is still a competitive sport, and you don't want to lose that. What is just, I mean, you guys notoriously all play Banana Ball, which is not the exact same as baseball, like to someone who's never experienced Banana Ball. How do you describe it?  \[MUSIC\] JO: It's a two-hour game, so that's the beauty of it. There's a clock.  JESSE COLE: One, two, three. Start the clock! JO: There's no mound visits, there's no bunting.  ANNOUNCER: Is he trying to bunt? Oh, no!  JO: The best rule, of course, is if a fan catches a foul ball in the stands during the game, that batter is out.  DG: I love that. I want to be that fan someday, like I love that.  JO: And again, imagine we're in Kannapolis, North Carolina, and a screaming line drive went down the third base line, and this 12-year-old kid reaches out, grabs it.  BROADCASTER: That is why you bring your glove to a ball game! Game entered by the fan...  JO: Fan catches a foul ball to end the game! DG: That's awesome. JO: The scoring is a little bit different. If you win the inning, if you score more runs than the opponent in the inning, you get one point. The one we just implemented this past year is the Golden Batter Rule.  BROADCASTER: Making his way to the plate to be the Golden Batter, a World Series champion, please welcome Ryan Howard!  JO: At any point during the game, usually later, strategically in the game. The manager can call on his best hitter and, in the biggest moment, take their best hitter and put them in the game to potentially hit a home run or score for the team. Again, we're taking all the great things that you like about sports. We're taking some things from other sports and putting them into baseball. And then we're kind of eliminating the friction points, the slow stepping out, bunting, walks, mound visits, crap like that. And we're packing it all into a two-hour, can't miss experience.  DG: That golden bat rule is amazing. It's like you can bring in your Otani like in that critical moment, no matter where you are in the order.  JO: Every other sport generally has the ability to put the ball in the hands of their best player in the biggest moment, except for baseball! You know, oh my gosh, we've got our you know our eighth batter catcher who's up to play up to the plate with the game of the line. Wouldn't you rather have Shohei Otani to be able to call on?  DG: Is there any rule or one of the more gimmicky things where you guys were like, okay, this went too far? Let's not, let's like roll that back.  JO: Maybe not, maybe not gimmicky, but maybe more nerdy. We didn't actually have the point system correct a few times, like the gameplay. Like if it was a video game, the game would have just broken, basically. Early on in a couple of the iterations, we realized, like, an hour in wait, I think the game is over. I don't think the other team can come back anymore. Thus, some iterations, thus the final inning, every run counts for a point type of thing. And so, yeah, always getting better, always trying to plus the experience, always learning from things. We now allow our fans to challenge a play once per game, so.  DG: Ugh! That's what all fans should have had all along in all sports. I mean, come on.  JO: That's right. Every fan sits behind home plate or 10,000 feet away or on a broadcast and says, "That was the worst call. I should be the umpire. I should be the referee." DG: Totally. JO: We put one fan in a judge's robe, and we give them a confetti popper, and they're able to challenge a play at their discretion.  DG: What is the recruitment process like? I mean, it's still bringing in players as invitation-only, right? Like, what are you looking for, and how does that process work?  JO: Right, so we've got this fantastic crew of coaches and Banana Ball operations staff and stats people and player development folks who are basically sourcing all these players from across the country and building this pipeline of players who are interested and what they'll do, you know, for example, throughout this next 2026 season is kind of sporadically throughout the year, they'll host invitation only events. You know, in Arizona in Florida, Texas, and New York, and everywhere in between. And they'll begin seeing who's real. You know you have to have the on-field talent, the skill to play the game. But what are you bringing off the field for the fans? Can you sing? Can you dance? Can you play a guitar? Can you ride a unicycle? You know, can you do backflips, acrobatic things? What is your trick play repertoire? How do you bring those elements to our game? And then the third piece of it is, are you good on camera? And can you create social content? And this is more than just being a great player on the field and going to the locker room. You have to have a commitment to meeting fans and signing autographs, and taking pictures. And we really break down that fourth wall between player and fan, because where else do you get that in sports? And so great on the fields, great off the field, great with fans, you put those three together is what makes a Banana Ball athlete.  DG: The fans have always been the forefront of the Bananas experience. And sometimes that means meeting them right where they are. In 2021, they started posting videos online and almost immediately blew up. And now the Bananas have more TikTok followers than all 12 of last year's major league baseball playoff teams combined.  Well, and you've put it together. I mean, your presence on social media is out of control, with millions of followers on all these platforms. I mean, I think CNN called you guys TikTok's favorite dance team. Was this is part of a long-term kind of social media growth strategy, or was this really organic?  JO: Yes, to both. We have felt like when you come to our games, you're there to be entertained. You're not really there to sold to or advertised to. We don't do advertising at the games or the stadiums, really. We don't do a ton of sponsorships, if you will. We do a few brand partnerships that help the experience, but our fans, they don't come to games to be advertised to, they don't come to games to be sold to. You know, when you buy a ticket from us online, we absorb the convenience fees and shipping fees and things like that. We ship our merchandise for free online as well. We absorb the taxes. Like we just do all things, all the things that take away the friction point.  DG: Are there lessons that you think Major League Baseball teams can learn from you guys? Not that they're gonna suddenly go to Banana Ball and change the rules of Major League baseball, but are, in terms of keeping, you know, like Atlanta Braves fans and Pittsburgh Pirates fans entertained enough without changing too much. Like, do you feel like you're teaching some lessons that they could draw from?  JO: I would imagine so, perhaps, maybe in ways that are not immediately known. One of our guiding principles that I do wish more businesses, whether you're in sports, entertainment, you sell car parts, I don't care. One of our principles is that we exist to create long-term fans over short-term profits. We exist to build fans, and I'm not sure sometimes in the short-term decision-making of sports leagues or any other businesses or entertainment venues that the long-term growth of building fans is always number one and important. It's probably in there. I'm sure most of them care about their fans, but it may not be forced to rank number one. And you see us take a lot of short-term hits in some of our decision-making that don't pay off financially from the jump. But we'd love to have a, you know, Jesse would say we'd love to have a billion fans and figure out how to handle the finances of that, then only be focused on let's go make a billion dollars today.  DG: Kind of a full circle, how this isn't just entertainment for you personally, I mean, you really want this to be about a connection with helping the community. You do ask for donations from some fans at the games. You have a nonprofit called Bananas Foster that helps foster families. How important is that kind of work to you in keeping that as part of the ethos of the whole organization?  \[MUSIC\] JO: You know, the mission and vision of it came from certainly Jesse and Emily as they began their journey into foster care and immediately noticed that the sentiment around that entire piece of our world generally was negative. What they felt like was if people are going to be inspired to become foster families and understand what this world needs in this realm of children and foster care. Then let's tell the great stories about it. And what has happened was it just opens people's eyes to these things. And they begin asking for more information. They begin signing up to take classes. They begin signing up to become a foster care family.  DG: Well, that's so interesting. So, I mean, it's sort of de-stigmatizing the whole foster care system and also making people feel like it's not this crazy thing that's existing in another world. Like this is something that I could do that foster families, foster kids, it's like everyone's part of our community, and let's just be in a community together.  JO: That's right. And it's refreshing to see you meet salt-of-the-earth people. You know, it's like, oh, those are people, those are my neighbors, right? That's a school teacher. It really releases that burden of like, anyone can get involved here. Maybe not to the fullest extent, but like learn more, talk about it. Let's have the conversation. Let's understand the need because there's people's lives or these children's lives are at stake. And it takes a lot of people to be able to step up and meet that need.  DG: This year, the Bananas are planning to get even bigger and better than ever before. They are traveling to 45 different states, playing in Yankee Stadium and the Superdome in New Orleans, and they're hoping to draw in record-breaking crowds.  What does this growth feel like for you right now, and what is the meaning of it?  JO: I was on a flight recently, and the pilot got on the microphone and actually came to the aisle and just kind of looked a few people in the eye and said, "Hey, just wanted to thank you for being on this flight today. It really means the world to my family that we're able to have this job, do this thing, have a nice life. We just really appreciate you flying with us." I about cried sitting there listening to him talk about it. But it stuck with me in the sense of, do people know how much we appreciate coming to a game, buying a ticket, buying a piece of merchandise, you know, following us on social media.  \[MUSIC\[ This past Christmas, we were going through our sales orders, and I was talking to the team about, "Here's how many items we've sold," and "This is how we're up and these are the metrics," but I showed them the list of orders and you know there's thousands of orders that are going through there and I clicked on one. I'd obviously kind of pre-planned it, but there was one that had a note on it, and it was a gift note, you know, from the purchaser to the person receiving, and it said, you, know, "To name, name, name, enjoy the t-shirt, and we're looking forward to going to the game with you all as a family, as a surprise in Tennessee this summer, you know, love Maw-Maw or whatever." And I brought it up in front of the team. You know, it was a pink t-shirt, little toddler pink t-shirt, two adult t-shirts, and a message to the family. And I said, "All right, y'all, we're gonna play in front of 3.4 million people this year. But to these people, and probably a lot more, this is Christmas. This is the first time that Maw-Maw and Pee-Paw and grandbaby and new parents are going to get together, go to a game. Think about little Susie, you know, unwrapping this pink t-shirt on Christmas morning, and think about mom and dad seeing that message and being excited about we get to go to a Bananas game. And they're probably going to look at flights that afternoon. They're going to talk about the hotel they're going to stay at. They're gonna drive up or fly up, and they're gonna hang out with the family for the weekend. And they're gonna come to our on Saturday night, Neyland Stadium, Knoxville, Tennessee, and it's our responsibility to deliver on Christmas morning. That's what we are supposed to do, and there are stories like that across the board, but we cannot forget the ones, right? Out of 3.4 million people, they're all made up of ones. We cannot forget that it's one fan at a time, and so as big as it gets, that's our reminder back to our team that these are real people, real lives, real impact that needs to be made. And it's our gravity, the gravity of the responsibility to be able to go out and deliver that to them.  DG: Jared, what a pleasure, a lot of fun talking to you, and I can't wait to get to a Bananas game at some point.  JO: Yeah, my pleasure. Enjoyed it.  DG: Next time, on Sports in America… \[MUSIC\] BRITTNEY GRINER: Oh I mean, at that point, I'm going, like, I'm done. Like, I'm, it's over. Like, there's no way that this isn't gonna be a big deal. DG: We’re talking to Brittney Griner — a first-round draft pick in the WNBA, a three-time Olympic gold medalist, and at one time, a Russian prisoner. BG: It's bugs and spiders crawling all over where your head is supposed to be laying down. It's blood on the sheets. It's stains on the sheets, but you don't even know what they are. DG: Four years ago, she finally made it home after 10 months in detention. Since then, Brittney Griner has written a memoir and become a parent. This season, she’ll play with a new basketball team, the Connecticut Sun. But it’s her time behind bars that has stayed with her. BG: It's hard for me, honestly, talking on this just because of the threats. People don't understand, like, people make mistakes, and it's like people can't even open up their hearts to understand something. DG: Brittney Griner tells her story next week on Sports in America. This is Sports in America. I'm your host, David Greene. Our executive producers are Joan Isabella and Tom Grahsler. Our senior producer is Michael Olcott. Our producer is Michaela Winberg, and our associate producer is Bibiana Correa. Our engineer is Mike Villers. Our theme music is composed by Emma Munger. Our talent booker is Britt Kahn. Our tile artwork was created by Bea Walling. Sports in America is a production of WHYY in Philadelphia and is distributed by PRX. Some of our interviews were originally created by Religion of Sports, with special thanks to Adam Schlossman. You can find Sports in America on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, the iHeartRadio app, you know, wherever you get your podcasts. And we also want to hear from you. How about you drop us a line? You can write us at sportsinamerica@whyy.org. That's sportsinamerica@whyy.org. Thanks everybody, and we'll see you next time for Sports in America.