New venues. New teams. Savannah Bananas launch plans for ‘really big year.’
SAVANNAH ― The Savannah Bananas have always broken with baseball tradition. Dancing umpires and base coaches. Games in college and pro football stadiums. Playing rules that reward sure-handed fans (caught foul balls are outs) and speedy games (a two-hour time limit).
The Bananas’ latest curveball? Embracing the game’s history by bringing back the longest-playing Black professional baseball team, the Indianapolis Clowns, for the 2026 season.
The Clowns will join the Bananas and four other teams as Banana Ball founder Jesse Cole expands his barnstorming baseball enterprise starting in February. The Bananas unveiled those plans Thursday night with a Banana Ball Selection Show carried live on ESPN2, ESPN+ and Disney+ and held before 5,000 at Savannah’s Grayson Stadium.
The new season features games in 45 states and 75 stadiums, including two 100,000-plus seat college football venues, Texas A&M’s Kyle Field and the University of Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium. Bananas officials project their six teams will play in front of a record 3.2 million fans in 2026.
Banana Ball will also be played in 14 MLB stadiums, including a first appearance at Wrigley Field and a return to Yankee Stadium, as well as a return to Truist Park in Atlanta for a three game series May 8-10. There will also be games at two NFL stadiums, the New Orleans Superdome and Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, home of the New England Patriots.
The schedule release coincides with the opening of the ticket lottery list. The Bananas and their sister clubs have sold out every game since the enterprise’s launch five years ago, and tickets are distributed via a digital blind draw.
Fans will have more opportunity than ever to see Banana Ball in 2026. The Indianapolis Clowns are one of two new teams set to debut next year along with the Loco Beach Coconuts. The newcomers join the Texas Tailgaters (established 2025), the Firefighters (2024), the Party Animals (2020) and the Savannah Bananas in the inaugural Banana Ball Championship League season.
Bananas right-fielder Reese Alexiades said he was excited about having actual league competition.
“I’m a die-hard baseball fan, and it gives us a little more credibility going into a league,” he said. “The games are really going to count and be more competitive. I feel like this will be a really big year for our expansion and I’m excited for 2026.”
Each team has its own persona and will headline its own tour as Banana Ball evolves from a show centered on the flagship club, the Savannah Bananas, to a collection of zany franchises traveling the country nine months a year.
“The new teams have been years in the making,” the Bananas’ Cole said. “We’ve gone through a lot of ideas, a lot of iterations and concepts and we’re very proud of the two we came up with because they’re completely different with different points of view, and their characters will have different meanings to different people.”
The genesis for the reincarnation of the Clowns came when the Bananas played at Kansas City in 2022 and Negro Leagues Baseball Museum president Bill Kendrick said the team’s antics reminded him of the Clowns. Kendrick was on hand at Thursday’s Selection Show.
The Clowns were initially a Negro League team known for its novel attractions, including minstrel shows, player stunts and various pranks, like players in grass skirts, wigs, clown suits and white face makeup. The first woman signed to a long-term contract in professional baseball, Toni Stone, played for the Clowns.
The original Clowns also launched the career of one legend and capped that of another. The team signed a 17-year-old Hank Aaron as a shortstop in 1952, before selling his rights for $10,000 a year later to the Boston Braves. Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige threw his last professional game for the Clowns in 1967, when he was 61.
The Clowns coaching staff includes Ryan Howard, the 2006 National League MVP, three-time All-Star and part of the World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies. Howard will join the Clowns for several games on their headliner tour.
“This is the most important team we’ve launched,” Cole said. “They had so many amazing showmen and talented players, and so we’re going to celebrate that history. We’re going to honor the history, but we’re also going to bring the Clowns into the 21st century.”
The other expansion team, the Coconuts, will play with beach-inspired uniforms and be co-coached by two-time Major League All-Star and World Series winner Shane Victorino. He’ll be in the dugout for a select number of Coconuts’ games played in large venues.
Other Coconut stars include the Hooligans, a group of grass skirt-wearing male cheerleaders. The Hooligans are inspired by the popular Savannah Man-nanas, billed as a “dad bod cheerleading squad.”
