Exactly 10 years ago, the team that would soon be known as the “Savannah Bananas” first arrived in Georgia to bring fun back to playing baseball. Jesse Cole and his wife, Emily Cole, founded the Savannah Bananas baseball team with the intent of making the sport more engaging and entertaining for viewers. According to the Savannah Bananas, the team prides itself on being “fan-centric” and finding ways to keep the excitement out on the field. 

Merrick Clifford, sophomore, played first base on the freshman baseball team last season. 

“[The Savannah Bananas are] helping baseball because [they] are getting the audience back,” Clifford said. “People don’t like watching baseball because it’s boring, but [The Bananas] make it much more entertaining.”  

Jesse played collegiate baseball at Wafford College in South Carolina. Due to a shoulder injury, his goals of playing professionally were cut short. During his college career, he was also a part of the youth theater program. The program inspired Jesse and influenced where he decided to creatively take the Bananas later on. After graduation, he found himself interning and eventually becoming a team owner for the Coastal Plain League (CPL), a collegiate summer league who have Division 1 players from around the nation.

 The Savannah Bananas began participating in this league in 2016 and continued through 2022. During their time in the CPL, they drafted more than 35 players and won three Pettit Cup Championships, a series of playoffs through the CPL. 

The Bananas started playing under their own specific set of rules, called Banana Ball, in 2023 when the team decided to leave the summer league to play year-round baseball. The teams that play against the Bananas are the Party Animals, the Firefighters, and the Texas Tailgaters. Banana Ball has 11 “commandments,” which include no bunting, lightly tapping the ball, no walks, and allowing the fans to make outs by catching foul balls during the game. These commandments change how baseball is traditionally played and go against the rules that most baseball teams play by. 

“[Banana Ball improves the game because] there is not a lot of downtime. There is always something going on,” Clifford said. “[Banana Ball] keeps the joy for the game, instead of coaches being super hard on you. [The players] are just a bunch of guys having fun.” 

Recently, the Savannah Bananas have stirred up controversy, the main argument being whether they improve baseball or embarrass it. For example, Athlonsports is upset because the Bananas have sold out more tickets and filled more stadiums than the Major League Baseball (MLB). Over the span of 90 days from Feb. 2025 to May 2025, the MLB’s 30 teams combined gained 71.7 million views on YouTube, and the Savannah Bananas by themselves earned 42.9 million. The Bananas’ exposure and social media presence play a role in their growing popularity. The team has 10.9 million followers on TikTok, 4 million on Instagram, and 2.35 million on YouTube.

The baseball community has been heard saying that the team makes baseball boring with their repetitive tendencies, such as the same trick shots and dancing too often. Pitchers don’t always hit their spots, and batters struggle to make solid contact, so you end up with at-bats whose only dose of “fun” is random cuts to other players dancing.

The Savannah Bananas played on September 26 at Daikin Park in Houston, Texas. The Bananas are currently on their Banana Ball World Tour Championship, with many streamable games to come on DirecTV and truTV.