I Visited Princess Potassia’s Castle. Banana Land Is Even Stranger Than I Thought.

SOMEWHERE ALONG THE SOUTH CAROLINA COAST — I have conducted interviews in some unusual circumstances since entering the world of Banana Ball.

This was my first with actual royalty.

Getting an audience with Princess Potassia is complicated these days. She spends considerably less time at her castle than you might expect from a princess.

There are Banana Ball games to attend. Songs to write. Children to meet. Upper decks to visit. Crowds to entertain.

Apparently, ruling a kingdom has become something of a road job.

“I don't spend a ton of time there these days,” Princess Potassia told me when I finally reached her castle somewhere along the South Carolina coast.

Fortunately, she assured me there are people keeping the place running while she travels.

And when the Princess does return home?

“It is nice to put on the yellow satin pajamas and kick up my feet every once in a while.”

Royal life, it turns out, has its perks.

But I had not traveled all this way to investigate the Princess's sleepwear.

I wanted to understand her kingdom.

And Princess Potassia warned me immediately that this isn't your typical one.

“It is not your typical kingdom, that is for sure,” she said. “We've got a lot more silliness and a lot less of the pomp and circumstance of a regular kingdom.”

She paused before providing what may be the perfect name for the place.

“The Kingdom of Chaos.”

Welcome to Banana Land.

How does someone become Princess Potassia?

You might assume becoming a princess involves being born into royalty.

Not here.

The position of Princess Potassia existed before the current Princess received her crown—or, more accurately, her banana tiara.

The royal position had apparently been vacant for some time.

Then came an invitation from none other than the King of Potassium himself: Split.

There was, however, a royal test.

Princess Potassia would have to demonstrate a special talent.

Her assignment was wonderfully Banana Land: take a familiar princess song and transform it into a song about Banana Land.

So she did.

The Princess rewrote “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid into her own Banana Land parody.

There was only one problem.

She had never really done anything like it before.

“I was worried,” she admitted.

She sent in her creation and waited.

Unbeknownst to her, the song was eventually played for the organization's staff.

People liked it.

A lot.

The Princess was invited back.

“The rest is history,” she said. “I've just never left.”

She is now in her third season.

Apparently, that's how coronations work around here.

The banana tiara is her suit of armor

Eventually I had to ask about the crown.

I was quickly corrected on royal terminology.

It's a banana tiara.

The first time Princess Potassia put it on with her gown, she remembers having a “pinch me” moment.

This year's royal wardrobe received an upgrade, too.

More yellow. More sparkle. More Banana.

But what surprised me was how she described putting it on.

“I look at it as putting on kind of like my suit of armor to go out into the world,” she said.

That's when our trip through the Kingdom of Chaos started becoming something other than a silly conversation with a princess.

Because underneath the tiara, songs and sparkling yellow gown is a pretty serious responsibility.

There are kids waiting to meet her.

Lots of them.

The princess who sat down on the floor

Princess Potassia remembers one young visitor in particular.

We'll call her Princess L.

During Potassia's first season, she noticed the young girl on the concourse with her mother. The noise and excitement of Banana Land had become overwhelming.

Princess Potassia could have waved.

She could have posed for a quick photograph.

She could have kept moving.

Instead, the Princess sat down on the floor.

“I just went and parked myself right on the floor next to her and mom,” she recalled.

They talked.

That could have been the end of the story.

It wasn't.

The next time Princess Potassia saw the girl, she was wearing her own princess dress.

The two became friends. Princess L later became one of the Princesses of the Game.

Then came a gift Potassia still considers one of the best she has ever received from a fan.

Princess L created a scrapbook filled with their photographs and her artwork. She also included QR codes linking to personalized videos.

One was for a bad day.

Another was for the Princess's birthday.

Potassia had originally sat down because she thought a child needed her.

Something unexpected happened.

The child changed the Princess, too.

“I knew that I made a difference in that moment,” she told me, “but then she left this enormous impact on me.”

That's a pretty powerful thing to hear inside the Kingdom of Chaos.

The most important person in the kingdom

As we continued talking, I asked Princess Potassia what “Fans First” means to her.

Her answer may explain why children react to her the way they do.

For Princess Potassia, Fans First isn't about reaching everybody at once.

It's about the person standing in front of her.

“I want you to know that I'm putting you before all of that,” she said. “When we're having a conversation, when we're taking a photo, you are the most important thing to me in that moment.”

That's not always easy in Banana Land.

Everything moves.

Something is always happening.

The Princess may need to be on the field. Another cast member may be waiting for her. Hundreds of other people may want photographs and autographs.

Sometimes she has to leave.

But she makes fans a promise.

If there isn't enough time now, she'll make time at the postgame plaza party.

“I stay until the bitter end,” she said. “If there's somebody wanting to see me, I will make sure that they do.”

That includes the parents.

Princess Potassia has noticed something about family photographs: Mom or Dad is frequently behind the camera.

So members of the Banana Ball staff accompanying her will sometimes take the camera instead.

Mom gets in. Dad gets in. Everybody gets in.

For a moment, the entire family gets to become part of the kingdom.

Her favorite place isn't the royal box

Here's something else I didn't expect.

If you're looking for Princess Potassia during a Banana Ball game, don't assume you'll find her near the best seats.

She loves the upper deck.

Once her responsibilities on the field are finished and she's free to roam, up she goes.

Why?

Because nobody expects a princess in the cheap seats.

“You see somebody turn around like, ‘Oh my gosh, she was just down there. How'd you get up here? What are you doing here?’”

That reaction is precisely why she goes.

She calls it “surprise and delight.”

I think there's something more important happening.

At a 40,000- or 50,000-seat stadium, the person farthest from home plate is still inside Banana Land.

Princess Potassia wants them to know it.

Royal songwriting is apparently a full-time hobby

Life back at the castle isn't all yellow satin pajamas.

Princess Potassia writes her own lyrics.

In fact, she tries to create something new practically every week.

Her pregame performances generally include a princess song and another segment involving fans, and she has considerable freedom to choose what she performs.

Sometimes Jesse Cole has an idea.

Sometimes fans make requests.

Sometimes the opponent provides the inspiration.

And sometimes the Princess just wants to get weird.

She has been experimenting outside traditional princess music and told me she'd like to do more “genre bending.”

Then she floated an idea that I'm frankly hoping becomes real:

Punk Goes Princess.

Now we're talking.

Princess Potassia listens to everything from oldies to early-2000s pop punk, which was not exactly what I expected to discover during my royal visit.

Then again, perhaps I hadn't been paying attention.

One of Banana Land's guiding ideas is to figure out what is normal—and do the opposite.

Why should princesses be exempt?

Princess Potassia still gets nervous

Here's another secret from behind the castle walls.

Princesses get nervous.

Especially when technology decides not to cooperate.

Potassia sings using in-ear monitors because of the delay between sound on the field and sound traveling through a huge stadium.

If those monitors fail, things can get interesting quickly.

Those are the moments, she said, when she can find herself “shaking in my boots.”

She's much more comfortable now than when she began three seasons ago.

The fear hasn't disappeared completely.

Something else has gotten bigger than the fear.

Fun.

And Jesse Cole has helped her become more comfortable with something that doesn't come naturally to a self-described perfectionist:

Failure.

“It's okay if something isn't perfect,” she said, “as long as we're failing forward.”

In the Kingdom of Chaos, apparently even princesses are allowed to mess up.

They just have to try something new afterward.

A 10-hour day in a tiara

There is one part of royal life little kids probably don't see.

The days are long.

Very long.

At MLB and football stadiums, Princess Potassia said game days can begin around 10 a.m.

She can be “suited and booted” for nearly 10 hours.

And the show doesn't stop simply because it's Sunday and she already gave everything she had Friday and Saturday.

“I want the person who came on Friday night to have the same show that somebody experiences on Sunday,” she said.

That sometimes means losing her voice by the end of a weekend.

Royalty, it seems, is considerably less glamorous backstage.

What does Princess Potassia think about baseball?

Eventually our royal conversation turned to an important question.

Banana Ball or baseball?

Princess Potassia refused my attempt to start an international incident.

She likes both.

More importantly, she likes anything that makes kids excited about the game.

Banana Ball's faster pace, celebrations and unusual rules can hold children's attention and remind them that sports don't have to become serious quite so quickly.

But she isn't interested in replacing baseball.

“America's pastime is always going to be America's pastime,” she said. “There is space in the world to have both of these games exist.”

She compared baseball and Banana Ball to apples and oranges.

There is a common thread.

But spending a day in Banana Land is something very different.

And that's exactly the point.

The Banana Bowl has the Princess's attention

Before leaving the kingdom, I asked about October 10 and the inaugural Banana Bowl.

That's when the Princess's competitive side appeared.

She grew up playing soccer and later became a tennis player, and beneath all that royal sparkle lives somebody who really wants to win.

She's fascinated by how close the Banana Ball Championship League race has become.

But there's another reason she's excited.

For the Banana Bowl, all six teams and all six casts are expected to be together.

That creates possibilities she's never experienced.

Special guests.

Collaborations.

Performances involving cast members who normally spend their seasons in different corners of Banana Land.

She doesn't know exactly what Banana Ball has planned.

Neither do I.

But the Princess offered one prediction.

“It is going to be on a scale unlike anything I've ever seen.”

And she suspects there's choreography coming.

A lot of choreography.

The Princess has a question for you

My visit was nearly over when Princess Potassia did something unexpected.

She turned the interview around.

The Princess wants to hear from Banana Ball fans.

Specifically, she wants to know what fans love about the two very different ways of experiencing Banana Ball.

There is intimate Grayson Stadium in Savannah, where the whole thing began.

Then there are the enormous MLB and football stadiums Banana Ball increasingly fills around the country.

Both can create completely different memories.

What does each do best?

What should Banana Ball preserve?

What could it make even better?

“Knowledge is power,” Princess Potassia said.

So consider this your royal invitation.

If you've experienced Banana Ball at Grayson Stadium and in one of the major stadiums on tour, tell us which parts of each experience you loved most.

We'll make sure the message gets back to the castle.

Leaving the Kingdom of Chaos

I learned quite a few things during my visit with Princess Potassia.

A banana tiara can double as armor.

Princesses apparently listen to pop punk.

Yellow satin pajamas are acceptable royal attire.

The upper deck may actually be more interesting than the royal box.

And somewhere along the South Carolina coast sits a castle whose occupant spends surprisingly little time inside it.

But the thing I'll remember happened much earlier in our conversation.

A little girl was overwhelmed by the noise and commotion around her.

A princess noticed.

And instead of waving from afar or hurrying toward her next responsibility, she sat down on the floor.

One person.

One conversation.

One moment.

Princess Potassia later told me about something Jesse Cole says that has stayed with her:

“Do for one what you wish you could do for many.”

In a stadium filled with tens of thousands of people, Princess Potassia knows she can't make every person feel special.

So she works on one at a time.

Perhaps the Kingdom of Chaos has a rule after all.

And it's a pretty good one.

See additional Savannah Bananas on si content!

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