‘Clowns to the left of me
Jokers to the right
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you’
— Stealers Wheel, ‘Stuck in the Middle With You’
There were plenty of clowns on the field Saturday night at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark. And jokers, too. And I was stuck in the middle of about 10,000 of my closest friends who showed up to watch a spectacle known as Banana Ball.
Saturday’s “game,” and I’m using the term loosely, featured two barnstorming exhibition teams — the Indianapolis Clowns and the Texas Tailgaters — owned by the Savannah Bananas empire.
It wasn’t exactly baseball, as we know it, although if you watched closely between the line dancing, singing, juggling and acrobatics, there was pitching, hitting and fielding to be seen.
No one seemed to mind that there was really no way to know when a team’s at-bat ended or what the actual score was or if any of that mattered.
Well, it really didn’t.
Banana Ball is all about nonstop fun, excitement and noise. Oh, the noise.
Music blared from the stadium speakers from well before the game began and did not let up for a second until after, well, at least until we headed home after eight innings of the organized chaos.
So, you may be asking, how did all this begin and why did so many Oklahomans flock to the Bricktown Ballpark on two consecutive blistering nights in August?
The Bananas started out as a collegiate baseball team in Savannah, Ga. that eventually morphed into the entertainment phenomenon that we know of today.
Jesse Cole, a former collegiate player and coach, had taken over the collegiate team, which played the traditional game that moved at a slow pace and attracted few fans. Cole noticed that those who did show up were likely to leave well before the game ended.
He decided there had to be a better way. So he invented the concept of Banana Ball that injected entertainment into the mix, renamed the team the Bananas and it took off from there. The Bananas’ motto is “We make baseball fun.”
You can learn more about it by watching the CBS Sixty Minutes feature below.
Today, the Bananas feature seven traveling teams that fill minor league, major league and even college football stadiums across the nation. I read a story about a Bananas exhibition played in Denver the week previous to the OKC show that drew 100,000 people over three nights.
You could see in Bricktown that many in the crowd are actual Bananas fans. They wore Banana yellow shirts. They knew all of the chants and the dance routines. Some of them even got up and danced themselves.
So, it’s a show. But not The Show that players aspire to, as Major League Baseball is known.
I admit I’m a geezer and likely to shout, ‘get off my lawn!’ But I have no problem with Banana Ball or its popularity. There were people in the stadium Saturday who didn’t even realize that OKC had a minor league baseball team, so perhaps they became acquainted with the Comets. Maybe.
In reality, you can complain about the slow play of the game as played by college, minor league or Major League teams, but they all have a big advantage over the Bananas, as I see it.
You can have a conversation while sitting in the stands of, say an OKC Comets baseball game. That’s a big plus for me. You can also appreciate the strategy and great plays. You know the score and can even keep your own scorecard.
I could not concentrate on anything baseball related Saturday because of the constant disco-level volume of the music, the ongoing dancing routines or distractions like the alleged pitcher that took the mound wearing an elephant costume or the shortstop dressed as a rodeo clown.
So, I’m glad we got to see Banana Ball in all of it’s glory here in OKC.
Once was enough.
I’ll be back at the ballpark later this week to watch the Comets play El Paso. And I’ll welcome the relaxing pace of the game.
