By With Special Correspondent Jon Wehrenberg
In a sea of yellow and in front of a sold-out St. Louis crowd Friday night, the Savannah Bananas took the field against the Loco Beach Coconuts.
But with Banana Ball, the show starts long before the first pitch.
Hours before the game, fans were treated to a pep rally featuring the Hulagans, a spirit team of oversized men in hula skirts tasked with firing up the crowd. Princess Potassia greeted fans and serenaded them in a yellow gown fit for a Disney princess. There were T-shirt tosses, flying bananas and plenty of opportunities for fans to get involved.
Players from both teams then spent hours signing autographs, taking photos and meeting fans.
It quickly became clear this wasn’t going to be an ordinary night at the ballpark.
Speaking with several players before the game, two common themes emerged. These were players from completely different walks of life, but each shared a love for baseball they simply weren’t ready to give up.
For Tucker Allen, that meant finding a new baseball dream.
The former Mississippi State College World Series hero continued pursuing professional baseball before eventually being released by the Miami Marlins organization. Friends convinced him to give Banana Ball a chance.
“I had a dream of playing in the majors and realized that was not gonna happen,” Allen said. “I finally made the decision to join the Coconuts and have never looked back. I am truly having the time of my life.”
Allen has already experienced some incredible moments through baseball, including winning the College World Series.
“I have had some incredible moments, such as meeting Dak Prescott after winning the CWS, but nothing compared to this,” Allen said.
Dakota “Stilts” Albritton took an entirely different road to Banana Ball.
A pipe fitter and construction worker from Georgia, Albritton turned a childhood birthday present into his ticket out of a life spent laying concrete.
“On my 10th birthday, my parents gave me stilts, and I immediately took off running in them across my yard,” Albritton said.
Years later, Albritton came home from work to learn his parents had signed him up for a Savannah Bananas tryout.
He knew he needed to do something to get noticed.
“I knew I had to stand out, so I put on my stilts and took off running on the field,” Albritton said. “It only took a couple of minutes for them to call me over and talk about a spot on the team.”
Once the game started, standing out became the theme of the night.
Following an electric player introduction, the next two hours were filled with trick plays, dancing, music and nearly constant audience participation.
The soundtrack ranged from songs aimed at younger fans to hits that had nearly the entire stadium singing along. Players launched bananas from the upper levels of the stadium as fans below attempted to catch them in oversized banana pants.
Coconuts player Kaden Bowler even cruised around on a motorized surfboard.
“I did have one bad crash on the warning track which messed up my knees,” Bowler said, “but it was too much fun to give up.”
St. Louis fans received another treat when Cardinals legends Matt Adams and David Eckstein joined the festivities.
Both former Cardinals said before the game they were excited for the opportunity to experience Banana Ball.
When Adams was asked what special talent he would have incorporated into his game if he had the opportunity to become a Banana, the answer came quickly.
“It would have to be some WWE wrestling involved,” Adams said.
He would have fit right in.
There was virtually no downtime during the game’s mandated two-hour time limit. When baseball wasn’t being played, something else was happening.
Contests ranged from finding the worst singing voice in the stadium to seeing which parent a toddler would choose, with the loser ultimately taking a pie to the face.
Yet for all the trick plays, dancing, stilts and flying bananas, perhaps the most memorable part of the evening was watching the kids.
Many came dressed in Bananas shirts and jerseys. They danced, sang, chased autographs and remained engaged throughout the night.
They weren’t simply watching a baseball game.
They felt like they were part of it.
Savannah Bananas founder and owner Jesse Cole wasn’t able to make the trip to St. Louis, but his fingerprints were everywhere. The organization’s fan-first philosophy could be seen from the afternoon’s first interactions through the final moments of the game.
St. Louis made an impression on the players, too.
Several players I spoke with called the ballpark one of the nicest venues they had played in during the tour. They praised both the beauty of the stadium and the enthusiasm of the St. Louis crowd.
Banana Ball features stilts, surfboards, dancing players, flying bananas and enough unusual rules to make a baseball traditionalist’s head spin.
But underneath the spectacle is something much simpler.
It’s players who still love playing baseball and fans of all ages having fun watching them do it.
For one night in St. Louis, surrounded by a sea of yellow, baseball felt a little less like a sport you simply watch and a lot more like a party everyone was invited to.