Longtime Savannah Bananas Fans Reveal What Banana Ball Must Never Lose

Growth presents an interesting problem for Banana Ball.

How do you turn something that thrived inside the intimate confines of Savannah's Grayson Stadium into a national—and eventually international—sport without losing what made people fall in love with it?

Rick and Meredith Apfel have an unusual perspective on that question.

They've been attending Savannah Bananas games since 2017, when the Bananas were still playing collegiate summer baseball.

Nearly 30 games later, they've experienced Banana Ball in Savannah and around the country, including games in Baltimore, Washington, Kansas City, Chicago and New Orleans.

They've witnessed both sides of the Banana Ball explosion.

And their assessment is refreshingly nuanced.

“The service has,” Meredith said when I asked whether the organization had successfully scaled its Fans First culture.

Then she added an important qualification.

“I think the product hasn't caught up yet.”

The bigger the stadium, the bigger the challenge

That doesn't mean they think Banana Ball has gotten worse.

Quite the opposite.

They've watched the dancing, musical performances and overall production improve dramatically. They've watched the organization invest in Grayson Stadium. And they appreciate the transition from the repetitive Bananas-versus-Party Animals era into a league where games carry more competitive meaning.

But something can be gained and lost simultaneously.

Meredith particularly notices the difference in massive venues.

Some of the character-specific entertainment that works when fans are close to the action can be harder to appreciate from thousands of seats away.

She recalled seeing the Firefighters in Washington, D.C., where the team's themed entertainment included elaborate firefighter-related antics.

At a much larger venue, that type of experience didn't translate as easily from every seat.

“I feel like I missed out on what made Banana Ball special,” she said of one such experience.

That's an important observation as Banana Ball enters its next stage.

The challenge isn't simply filling bigger stadiums.

It's making the person in the farthest seat feel like they're still at Grayson.

What Grayson Stadium has that Wrigley Field doesn't

Rick and Meredith attended Banana Ball at Wrigley Field.

That's an extraordinary accomplishment for a sport that essentially didn't exist when they first discovered the Bananas.

Yet when I asked about their favorite experience, the conversation repeatedly returned to Savannah.

Grayson Stadium isn't better because it has more amenities.

It's better because it has intimacy.

Meredith compares the feeling to Major League Baseball spring training. Players are closer. Staff members are accessible. Fans talk to one another.

“When you go to a game at Grayson Stadium, everyone around you will talk to everyone else,” she said.

They've met people from around the world that way.

That didn't necessarily happen at the larger venues.

The distinction may sound small, but it gets at something fundamental about Banana Ball.

Banana Ball wasn't built merely around what happens between the foul lines.

It was built around participation.

They've watched Fans First scale

If some aspects of the entertainment face growing pains, Rick and Meredith believe the organization's service culture has scaled remarkably well.

Their best example actually came from their worst Banana Ball experience.

During a game at the Superdome in New Orleans, they found the acoustics and sound level uncomfortable enough that they decided to leave.

A Bananas staff member saw them.

Rather than simply watching two customers walk out, the employee stopped them and asked why.

Could they help?

Could the organization make it right?

Rick and Meredith didn't ask for anything. They understood the venue presented circumstances beyond the Bananas' complete control.

But the interaction stuck with them.

“The probably best thing from the Bananas is truly the Fans First philosophy,” Rick said.

That extends beyond handling problems.

The couple described positive experiences with ticket and fan-service employees over the years. They've watched players interact freely with spectators. They've seen members of the organization make themselves remarkably accessible.

Meredith even remembers Rick asking whether he could participate with the marching band at Grayson.

They let him.

“You tell me another professional event where they would let some random fan do something like that just because they ask,” she said.

The ticket decision matters, too

There's another element Rick hopes never disappears as Banana Ball grows: control of ticketing.

He's particularly happy the organization has resisted a model in which ticket prices and fees can become disconnected from the original price of attending.

“I would say that probably keeping control of the tickets is probably one of the best things that they're doing,” he said.

That decision potentially leaves money on the table.

But it also protects one of the core promises of Fans First.

That's precisely why their perspective is valuable.

These aren't fans discovering Banana Ball in 2026 after seeing a viral TikTok.

They remember what it felt like before the phenomenon.

The people behind the show

When I asked what Savannah Bananas On SI should cover, their answer also offered something of a roadmap.

Don't cover only the stars.

Tell the stories of the people surrounding them.

Players, yes.

But also the Banana Nanas. The Man-Nanas. Princess Potassia. The band. Support staff. Ticket employees. The personalities spectators see at games but may know little about.

“Let them shine too,” Rick said.

That's exactly the kind of coverage we're building.

Because perhaps the most important lesson from Rick and Meredith's nine-year journey isn't about baseball at all.

Banana Ball's greatest competitive advantage may be the thousands of small interactions surrounding the game.

A staff member asking why someone is leaving.

A player taking a picture with a fan at an airport.

A marching band letting a spectator join the fun.

Two strangers at Grayson Stadium talking to one another.

Those things are relatively easy when you're playing in front of a few thousand people.

Doing them when you're filling major stadiums across America is considerably harder.

And if Banana Ball eventually fills stadiums around the world, protecting that intimacy may become one of its biggest challenges.

Because getting bigger is one thing.

Getting bigger without losing the thing that made people care in the first place?

That's the real trick.

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