The Florence Y’alls have added a game to their 2023 slate and it won’t be the ordinary baseball game. They’ll travel to Savannah, Georgia in mid-May to take on the Savannah Bananas in a showcase game after the first weekend of Frontier League play. The game is set for May 15.
What’s the difference in this game compared to a regular baseball game? Banana Ball.
The Bananas, who used to play in the Coastal Plain League, a summer collegiate circuit featuring some of the best collegiate baseball players in the country, use the basic fundamental rules of baseball as a guideline, but over the years Savannah has developed its own twist on America’s Pastime. In 2022, the organization announced a switch to full-time Banana Ball, which was designed “with the idea of making baseball more fast-paced, entertaining, and FUN.”
“Banana Ball” began in 2018 and has evolved to feature a two-hour game time limit; no bunting; no walks; stealing first base; and counting a foul ball as an out if the fan makes the catch, just to name a few of the rules.
Other in-game antics include, but is not limited to: players performing choreographed dances; players wearing kilts as uniforms; teams sending batters to the plate with a bat set on fire, fans watching the Banana Nanas senior citizen dance team or the Man-Nana’s dad bod cheerleading squad; and hitters batting against a pitcher standing tall on stilts.
The Y’alls open the season May 11, against the Gateway Grizzlies at Thomas More Stadium.