2025, Games, Media, sports, Uncategorized

Just Bananas!

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In the “nothing should surprise me” arena, I have discovered Banana Ball.  If you haven’t heard of Banana Ball, try to imagine the Harlem Globetrotters but with baseball instead of basket ball. Specially made banana balls, outrageous uniforms/outfits, trick plays, dancing… just a bit different:

Banana Ball started with the Savannah Bananas in 2016 and competed as a summer collegiate team for several years.  In 2018 they started playing exhibition games outside of their regular season and in 2023 they switched to all exhibition games against three partner teams:  the Party Animals, The Firefighters and The Texas Tailgaters.  Supposedly there will be two more teams added next year.

It kinda looks like baseball but there are some different rules:

  • Innings are worth one point each.
  • The team scoring the most runs in an inning wins that point.
  • In the final inning, every run counts as a point.
  • Time Limit: Games have a two-hour time limit, and no new inning can start after 1 hour and 50 minutes.
  • No Walks: Instead of walks, a “ball four sprint” occurs, where the batter sprints to first base and can advance until every fielder touches the ball.
  • No Bunting: Bunting is not allowed and results in an automatic ejection.
  • Stealing First: Batters can steal first base on any wild pitch or passed ball.
  • No Mound Visits: Mound visits are prohibited to speed up the game.
  • Fan Involvement: If a fan catches a foul ball, it counts as an out.
  • Stepping Out: If a batter steps out of the batter’s box, it’s an automatic strike.
  • Showdown Tiebreaker: If the game is tied after the time limit, a one-on-one showdown between a pitcher and a batter determines the winner.
  • Golden Batter Rule: A team can, once per game, substitute any batter into any spot in the lineup.
  • Challenges: Both teams can challenge certain umpire calls.

This appears to be pretty popular and they are playing to sell-out crowds wherever they go.  I haven’t been sucked in enough to watch whole games… and I don’t know who the various players are… yet.  But Is a lot of fun to watch all the Facebook clips – glad to see them having fun and not taking themselves too seriously.

Do you think mainstream sports should be more entertaining?

37 thoughts on “Just Bananas!”

      2. I think by turning sports figures into celebrities and sports into big big business, we (society) have encouraged serious-ness.

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    2. they are athletic exhibits with a local team to root for built in to make winning the contest meaningful
      tennis has no home team just athletic exhibition as is golf

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        1. weight lifting the guy who lifts the most
          baseball the team that scores the most. pretty straightforward stuff

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        2. I live in the middle of nowhere, and I found out I was having seizures so I wasn’t able to drive to get WiFi 😜 but we JUST had a company finally bring WiFi to our area! First time in EIGHT years!!! Very very excited. So yes, I will be back often but no, I’m not new 😘

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  3. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    Long ago I gave up opining about the nature of pro sports. The money and the influence they have in some circles, including using local taxes to build big arenas, sway many more people than any opinion I have. It is a world unto itself. That said, I can count on the third quarter of a pro football game to induce a nap, and I would hate to mess with that predictability.

    WP is a mess here today.

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  4. I read the blog like I do each day. Then just now a nurse from hospice was talking to me about sports and told me about this new kind of baseball and showed me videos of the bananas dancing. There’s a coincidence.
    Sandy rallied from the weekend and is hanging in there. Nurse says may last awhile yet.
    I think sports should be fun entertainment and agree with everything said. Gave up on big time sports. But I like the game of baseball, for which I have no intention of asking forgiveness. I like its relaxed pace. I like the quirks, the duals within the game, such as between the pitcher and the batter and the pitcher and base runners. This why we have season tickets to our summer collegiate team. I have never seen a fan get wound up about anything and rarely a player or a coach. Many of the players know each other despite what team they are on. Often collegiate teammates play against each other. Lately not seeing the games.

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  6. I have such a hard time with sports…my mind wands too much. Even when son was playing Lacrosse, I’d try to pay attention. “Watch the ball, watch the ball, watch the… did you see that red car go by? Oh look, a red bird! I wonder how many red birds there are? How many shades of red-” The crowd cheers. Damn!

    Hard to get more entertaining than that.

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    1. When YA was in gymnastics and competing (from my perspective a lot), I had a really hard time. Because you sit on those uncomfortable bleachers for usually 2 1/2 to 3 hours per meet and your child is only up to bat, so to speak, for about six minutes. And I really didn’t care what the other gymnasts were doing.

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  7. I enjoy all manner of sports. Heck, I enjoy watching cricket which has been described as baseball on valium. Australia has the Big Bash league. The time zone difference puts the matches at the wee hours of the morning EST.
    The upcoming World Cup in soccer should be entertaining if 47 lets foreigners into the country.

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  8. Well I suppose it depends on what you mean by “mainstream sports.” Professional sports only? Major League? Minor League? Does is include ice hockey? Collegiate sports? Soccer?

    I like watching major league baseball, and no, I wouldn’t want it to be less serious. On the other hand, I also think it would be fun to watch a Banana Ball game in action, but my expectations of what I’d see would be completely different, and I probably wouldn’t care who won or who lost.

    I have seen the Harlem Globetrotters once, and their ball handling was amazing, but it’s not a team I’d go see repeatedly. For one thing, I really don’t care for basketball.

    I dislike professional ice hockey – have only attended one professional game – but I love watching high school ice hockey teams play, both boys and girls.

    In my experience, sports of all kinds can be really fun. Right now I’m following the Wimbledon tennis tournament, but I can readily understand why tennis may not appeal to everyone.

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  9. I guess I have to have some personal connection in order to have any interest in a sport. The last time I really cared about a sporting event was when the Marshalltown Bobcats were playing for the (Iowa) state championship in 1966. (We won.) I knew the players on the team.

    I don’t understand the huge amounts of money devoted to these sports, but then there’s a lot I don’t understand about how money gets spent, in general…

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    1. That said, I see them as (usually) harmless fun; Husband (et al.) gets a kick out of watching some of it. And people with kids or grandkids playing sports – well, that would get a person out there. (Trying to not be so Bah, Humbug about it…)

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  10. I have seen some YouTube videos of the banana ball games and they do look fun. And some pretty amazing talent. You can’t goof like that if you’re not proficient. And the pitcher on stilts!

    Years Ago, our kids daycare would go to the local minor League ball games for activities. I’d go along sometimes. Some how, one of the teachers started calling me “Sugar lips” which the kids thought was hysterical. Maybe daughter called me that, I don’t remember. I’ll have to ask if anyone remembers how that started.

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  11. When my son was in school I attended competitive math events, geography contests, and Odyssey of the MInd (now another name). The math events were crushingly boring. Watching 5 contestants huddled around a calculator is not stimulating for an audience. I also began to notice certain characteristics of families involved. As in the rate of autism in student competitors and their parents was probably higher than the norm. Which meant the parents looked at their shoes a lot, so there were not too many people to visit with during the events.

    Pro sports events are really interesting, even the boring ones, compared to a math competition. But now those students are ruling the on-line universe with those higher math skills. But no one is watching.

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  12. I never was interested in most sports to begin with. I love swimming, but I don’t enjoy watching it during the Olympics. I enjoyed gymnastics when I was young, and I do watch it a little, but I’m a kind of like Ben about it – easily distracted.

    I never liked gladiator sports. Football, hockey, any sport where people are bashing heads, grunting, running over other players, and generally being rough – not my cup of tea. Add the millions and millions of dollars that are made because of people bashing their heads together – ugh. I have a pretty negative reaction to it. “Serious” isn’t quite the right word. I think “aggressive” fits better. Gladiator sports were hugely popular at the fall of Rome. I guess it kind of fits.

    I hope the Banana Ball thing catches on. That seems more entertaining than football.

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