The Savannah Bananas, an exhibition baseball team based in Savannah, Georgia, is bringing its unique brand of the sport, known as “Banana Ball”, to the Staten Island FerryHawks’ Staten Island University Hospital Community Park on August 11th and 12th of 2023, yesterday the independent Atlantic League’s FerryHawks announced via Twitter.
The Staten Island stop is part of The Bananas’ “2023 World Tour”, which will include visiting 33 cities across 20 states next year.
Until 2022, the Bananas competed in the Coastal Plain League’s (CPL) West division, where they won three Petitt Cup championships in 2016, 2021 and 2022.
After this past season, however, the Bananas announced that they were folding their collegiate amateur team and only playing “Banana Ball”, in which fun, quirky rules are the norm.
The list of unusual rules includes no walks or bunts, a two-hour time limit, and if a fan catches a foul ball, it counts as an out. Plus, batters are not allowed to step out of the batter’s box and mound visits are not permitted. And on-field dancing is a regular occurrence.
When the Bananas are not going nuts on the road, their home turf is at Grayson Stadium in Savannah, GA., where they have sold out the 4,000-person ballpark for six consecutive seasons.
Players to have don the Banana uniforms in 2022 were ex-Major Leaguers Jake Peavy, Jonathan Papelbon, Jonny Gomes, Josh Reddick, Bill “Space Man” Lee and Johnny Bench.
For more information on the Bananas and to purchase tickets, go to Thesavannahbananas.com.
— Jerry Del Priore
Brooklyn Sports World/NY NJ Sports World 