Why Savannah Bananas On SI Is Going All-In on Banana Ball

I thought I understood the Savannah Bananas.

I didn’t.

I knew about Jesse Cole. I knew about the yellow tuxedo. I had seen the dancing, the trick plays and the videos that seem to show up everywhere on social media. As a longtime Dave Matthews Band fan, I also knew about Cole’s well-documented love of Dave Matthews.

It looked fun.

Then I went to a Banana Ball game.

That changed everything.

There is something happening around the Savannah Bananas and Banana Ball that is difficult to understand until you experience it yourself. It is baseball, but it isn’t really baseball. It is entertainment, but calling it entertainment doesn’t quite explain it either.

It feels more like a combination of sports, live theater, a concert and a giant family gathering—all compressed into about two hours.

And somewhere along the way, I became completely hooked.

I started looking beyond the baseball

As I began covering the Savannah Bananas and the larger Banana Ball world for Sports Illustrated’s On SI network, something became obvious pretty quickly.

The scores are interesting.

The competition is real.

The players are legitimate athletes.

But some of the best stories have very little to do with the scoreboard.

They're about the people.

I've talked with players, coaches, broadcasters, fans, executives and others throughout the Banana Ball world. I've watched kids meet their favorite players. I've seen players stop what they're doing to interact with fans. I've watched families experience Banana Ball together.

And then there are moments I'll probably never forget.

At Wrigley Field in Chicago, I watched Firefighters player Lamar Sparks step to the plate after sharing a special walk-up with his sister, Jency.

The two had a childhood tradition. Lamar would ride on his sister's wheelchair when they were at the ballpark.

Earlier this season, after hitting a home run in Corpus Christi, Sparks had been able to recreate that childhood memory with her.

At Wrigley, he got another opportunity.

Sparks stepped to the plate.

First pitch.

Home run.

He rounded the bases and eventually rode with his sister from third base toward home, recreating that memory again—this time at Wrigley Field.

I was there.

And, yes, I cried. And cried.

So did plenty of people around me.

That's when something I'd already begun to suspect really hit me:

There are stories inside Banana Ball that are much bigger than Banana Ball.

Those are the stories I want us to tell.

So what are we building here?

Beginning today, we're expanding what we're doing at Savannah Bananas On SI.

There are already plenty of places where fans can find highlights, scores and incredible Banana Ball videos.

We're going to cover those things, too.

But I want to go deeper.

I want you to meet the person underneath the uniform. I want to meet with the person even making the uniform. I want to go deeper. Much deeper.

Why did this player choose Banana Ball?

What's his or her story?

Who is the person dancing in the stands?

What's it like being one of the broadcasters trying to describe controlled chaos?

What happens behind the scenes before thousands of people walk into the stadium?

What does an aspiring 12-year-old journalist see when she looks at Banana Ball?

Why does a young fan remember one particular interaction with a player for an entire year—and why does the player remember her, too?

And why are people who might not sit through nine innings of traditional baseball suddenly becoming passionate sports fans?

Those questions interest me.

We're going to experiment

There's another thing I've learned from studying Jesse Cole and the organization he's built:

Don't be afraid to try stuff.

Some ideas will work.

Some probably won't.

That's okay.

So we're going to experiment with our coverage, too.

We'll have interviews and profiles. We'll cover games and players. We'll tell fan stories. We'll explore the personalities surrounding the sport. We'll look at the entertainment, broadcasters, music and culture.

We'll talk about the business of Banana Ball and what entrepreneurs and other sports organizations can learn from its growth.

We'll explore Bananas Foster and some of the remarkable people involved in the foster community.

We'll have recurring features and some contributors who don't necessarily look like traditional sports journalists.

We'll even have younger voices helping us understand what Banana Ball looks like through their eyes.

And we're going to listen to you.

Because there's something rather ironic about covering an organization whose entire philosophy is “Fans First” without asking the fans what they actually want.

Sports journalism can be fun, too

I'm a businessman by background, not somebody who spent his entire career sitting in a sports press box.

I've written books. I am a best-selling author. I've contributed to Forbes.com. I've spent much of my professional life around finance, technology, artificial intelligence and entrepreneurs.

Maybe that's actually useful here.

Because I'm looking at Banana Ball with somewhat different eyes.

I'm fascinated by the sport.

But I'm equally fascinated by the community being created around it.

I'm fascinated by the marketing.

I'm fascinated by the customer experience.

I'm fascinated by the players becoming creators and personalities in their own right.

I'm fascinated by the way a sporting event can make a 7-year-old and an 82-year-old laugh at the same thing.

And I'm fascinated by how quickly this thing is growing.

I don't want Savannah Bananas On SI to become a place that simply tells you what happened.

I want us to help you understand the people who made it happen.

And then there's Banana Ball Insider

We're also building something complementary at BananaBallInsider.com.

The two shouldn't be identical.

Savannah Bananas On SI is where you'll find our polished editorial coverage, reporting, interviews, features and analysis.

Banana Ball Insider gives us room to loosen the tie a little bit.

That's where we can show you more of the process: extended conversations, behind-the-scenes material, additional video, things that didn't make an article and some of what it's actually like trying to cover this rapidly growing sport.

Think of one as the finished show and the other as occasionally letting you backstage.

That's the experiment, anyway.

And we'll probably change things as we learn.

That seems appropriately Banana Ball.

Our goal is pretty simple: create joy

I keep using those two words when talking to our team:

Create joy.

I've reached a point in my life and career where that matters to me.

There is plenty of bad news available.

We're not going to pretend difficult things don't happen. We're still journalists, and when something important happens around Banana Ball, we'll cover it.

But there is also nothing wrong with creating a place where people can come because something makes them smile.

A kid meeting her favorite player is a story.

A player doing something remarkable for his sister is a story.

An 80-year-old dancing in the stands is a story.

A young person discovering what she wants to do with her life because of something she experienced at a Banana Ball game is a story.

Those stories matter, too.

And I want to tell more of them.

That's where you come in

I don't want all the ideas to come from our newsroom.

Actually, I hope they don't.

If there's a Banana Baller we should know about, tell us.

If something remarkable happened to your family at a game, tell us.

If there's somebody behind the scenes nobody ever writes about, tell us.

If you think we're missing something, tell us that, too.

And if you have a completely ridiculous idea that you're convinced would make Banana Ball coverage more fun?

I especially want to hear that one!

Because the deeper I've gotten into this world, the more convinced I've become that we're still very early in the Banana Ball story.

I don't know exactly what this sport will look like five years from now.

I don't think anybody does.

That's part of what makes covering it so much fun.

What I do know is that something unusual is happening here.

And starting today, we're going to do our best to take you along for the ride.

See you at the ballpark.

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