Dancing, wild rules and Barry Zito's Nashville debut: Savannah Bananas a baseball phenomenon

Their sandals-with-socks-wearing, 76-year-old pitcher picked at a mandarin orange in the third-base dugout at First Horizon Park late Saturday afternoon.

A few feet to his left, their 10-foot-9 first baseman rested his metal legs against a cushioned bench, his obnoxiously oversized baseball glove settled on a shelf next to them.

Inside their clubhouse, a Cy Young Award-winning, three-time Major League Baseball All-Star pitcher prepared to make his Bananas debut — and for an on-field, midgame, solo concert.

Welcome to the world of the Savannah Bananas, a collection of baseball-playing, entertaining vagabonds who brought their show to Nashville last weekend for a pair of games against the Party Animals as part of their 94-game "Banana World Tour."

The architect behind baseball's version of the Harlem Globetrotters, the team's blinding-yellow-suit-wearing owner Jesse Cole, bandied about the dugout while his team's band rehearsed on the field and his players rehearsed for TikTok videos.

"I learned a lot from Walt Disney," Cole said. "He always put himself in the customer's shoes. He wanted to create a place in Disneyland that him and his daughters, adults and kids, could have fun together."

Fun police

Cole grew up with an affinity for entertaining and a love for baseball. But he realized over time that he didn't love watching the game he loves. He said he spent most of the last 15 years experimenting with how to make the game more fun, more fan-centered. Now he finds himself the owner of a team that has more than 9 million followers on social media, a team that tours the country to sold-out crowds at every stop, a team that is fun.

That included this weekend, when the tour dropped into town for a pair of games at the home of the Nashville Sounds.

"How can we make it fun for anybody to come out, even if they don't love baseball?" Cole asked rhetorically.

The answer to that question has become clear to Cole in recent years, when he decided one Bananas team was better than two. Until last year, one Bananas team was part of the Coastal Plain League, a collegiate league, while the other team concentrated on Cole's "Banana Ball" brand.

So mid-game, choreographed dance routines, dancing umpires, an outfielder who makes catches mid-backflip, a man who wears a space helmet, all of that and more have been born. Players are recruited and paid for their work. Malachi Mitchell, who wears the space helmet and whose uniform bears a lightning bolt rather than a number, is the son of Olympic gold medalist sprinter Dennis Mitchell.

Not to mention the game's rules, which include two-hour time limits; no bunting or stepping out of the batter's box; the ability to steal first base; and outs for foul balls caught cleanly by fans.

'There's no red tape," Cole said.

From 'Space Ball' to 'Banana Ball'

Bill "Spaceman" Lee called himself "the first baby boomer on the planet Earth." He's 76 years old now, and a pitcher/mentor/coach for the Bananas.

"There's no expiration date on the bottom of your foot," Lee said.

He claims to not own a watch, a cellphone or a television. Said he regularly does yoga.

The outspoken Lee spent 14 seasons in the major leagues, winning 119 games with a 3.62 ERA for the Boston Red Sox and Montreal Expos. He's the author of four books, a member of the Red Sox Hall of Fame, a former six-year U.S. Army Reserve veteran and an eccentric who invented his own pitch called the "Space Ball," a version of the eephus pitch he concocted to make up for his lack of velocity.

In short, he was a Banana decades before the Bananas came to be.

Cole grew up in Boston a fan of the Red Sox and Lee. At the urging of his parents, Cole called Lee at his home in Vermont in February 2022 to gauge his interest in becoming a Banana. Lee said he'd never heard of the team, knew nothing of them. His response, though, was not a surprise.

"I said, 'I don't try out,'" said Lee, who said he still throws in the mid-70 mph range. "He says, 'Well, we all have to try out.' "

Lee asked Cole the object of being a Bananas pitcher. Cole responded by telling him getting three outs as quickly as possible.

"Two minutes and 4 seconds later I was on the ballclub," Lee said. "I've been here ever since."

The tall guy

Dakota "Stilts" Allbritton is "The World's Tallest Pitcher and Hitter." He's the kid from a tiny Georgia city called Ellaville, population: 1,553. He's the long-haired blond who has poured concrete for a living, built dog kennels, worked at paper mills and was a pipefitter.

Albritton tried out for the Bananas in 2021. He brought his stilts out of a 10-year retirement for the audition. Albritton said he began wearing stilts when he was 10 years old, just for fun.

"Jesse was like, 'Oh, wow,'" Albritton said of the team's owner. "He loved it."

Albritton said he's also an expert unicycle rider who's had more than one offer to join the circus, most recently during the Bananas' stop in Las Vegas.

"But I'm not a circus act," he said. "I'm a baseball player."

On Saturday night, Albritton stood on his stilts in the right-handed batter's box, his regulation-sized bat in hand, and smacked a sharp single into left field. The standing-room-only crowd grew loud in approval. Stilts stunting his speed, Albritton was thrown out at second base after a teammate singled to left field.

He then tip-toed his way to first base, that over-the-top-sized glove dangling from his left hand, and played a half-inning of defense.

Albritton first heard of the Bananas in 2019 when he was a senior in high school and his baseball team traveled to their home field, Grayson Stadium, to play for a state championship. Two years later his mom called him to say she'd signed him up for a tryout with the Bananas.

"Where I ended my baseball career is where I started up a whole different baseball career, on the same exact field," he said.

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The big show

Barry Zito made a beeline from the pitcher's mound to the third-base dugout after throwing an inning in his Bananas debut Saturday.

The former Cy Young winner, World Series champion and three-time All-Star grabbed a guitar and proceeded to his next stage — the third-base coach's box. There he put on a one-man concert, strumming strings and singing his original song, "Ballpark Kids," as the Bananas batted in the top of the seventh inning.

This a night after former big-league pitcher Zach Duke pitched an inning for the Bananas.

Former big-league players are no stranger to wearing those bright yellow uniforms. World Series champions Johnny Damon and Jonny Gomes have played for the Bananas. Same for Cy Young winner Jake Peavy. Four-time All-Star Jonathan Papelbon pitched in two games while wearing a yellow kilt. Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench was a first-base coach.

"I believe the great ballplayers were entertainers way before, (like) Babe Ruth," Lee said.

Dalton Mauldin, a former player for Trevecca University who calls Nashville home, is a infielder for the Bananas. After Mauldin posted some videos of himself singing cover songs online, Cole reached out to him via social media and asked if he'd like to be part of the team.

Mauldin said he's gotten a kick out of playing with the Bananas and with and against some former major leaguers..

He recalled the Bananas recently playing an exhibition game against the Major League Baseball Players' Association Alumni team.

He recalled seeing some of the players lined up for the anthem before that game and pinching himself.

"It looked like a video game; it didn't even feel real," Mauldin said. "You read the back of their jerseys and it's all guys we played on video games."

'We're not scared to fail'

Per routine, the Bananas arrived at First Horizon around noon Saturday. They spent a good chunk of that time rehearsing the night's skits and some of that time rehearsing baseball.

Saturday's skits included a game of "Duck, duck, goose" on the mound to determine who would pitch to the next batter.

They've pulled off such stunts as having DR Meadows sprint from his position in center field, jumping over the pitcher's head, taking the ball and throwing a strike all in one motion. Later, Meadows caught a popup in foul territory, marking the first time in baseball a center fielder caught a flyball behind his own team's catcher.

"Pretty insane," Meadows said.

But things don't always go as planned in Bananaland. The game before that Meadows tried the same trick, only to throw a passed ball that allowed a runner to score and an inning to get ugly.

"We're not scared to fail," he said. "We always eventually get it right."

The team has a team of creative personnel that meets weekly to discuss new ideas. Cole, the owner, said he writes down 10 new ideas a day. There's a professional dancer on staff, Zack Frongillo, who serves as the team's director of entertainment.

The players, too, are heavily involved in the creative process.

"Jesse has a vision and wants to create fan-first moments everywhere around the field," Meadows said.

For instance, in their first game in Nashville on Friday, a Bananas pitcher was taken to the mound on a tractor. The team also introduced during the weekend a new rule called the "fan challenge," which allows fans to challenge close plays.

There also were sing-alongs, a pregame meet-and-greet with fans, the team's march through the stands during their stay in Nashville.

Make no mistake, though, the Bananas aren't just entertainers. They're talented baseball players who happen to know how to entertain, Cole said, adding that many of his pitchers can throw 90-plus.

"It's always the next thing, you know?" Cole said. "We do 15 new things every night. We're obsessed with challenging the way things have been done and having people come to the ballpark and see something they've never seen before."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Savannah Bananas a baseball phenomenon, from tricks to Cy Young stars