BOSTON ― Fenway Park is hallowed baseball ground. The Green Monster. Pesky’s Pole. Fenway is the place where Ted Williams laced line drive after line drive into the right-field power alley and where Curt Schilling pitched the Red Sox to an American League pennant on a bleeding ankle.
On Saturday, the fun-loving commoners took over the palace. The Savannah Bananas barnstormed into Boston for a one-night-only show and turned the storied ballpark and the streets around it into Bananaland like no one had experienced it before.
A sellout crowd of 37,000 showed up early — several hundred were onsite when merchandise tents opened five hours before first pitch — and stayed until the Bananas’ opponent, the Party Animals, celebrated their 4-1 victory with a Chippendales-esque celebration dance.
Most, if not all, left happy.
“We got tickets because we heard friends call them the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball,” said Matt Stevens, a regular at Red Sox games from Longmeadow, Massachusetts who attended with his wife and two children. “I don’t know what to compare them to, but they sure are fun.”
Credit: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe
Credit: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe
The Fenway game served as validation for Bananas’ owner Jesse Cole, and not just because the Boston-area native packed a ballpark he reveres as a cathedral. When he and his wife Emily folded a successful college summer league team in 2022 to go all-in on a barnstorming “baseball circus” featuring in-game dance routines and a quirky set of Banana Ball rules, his vision was to make the Bananas the hottest ticket in all of baseball.
The Fenway faithful embraced the zaniness — including the ballpark’s staff. An elevator operator said she hadn’t seen as many smiles at the ballpark since the Red Sox won their last World Series in 2018. Security staff called the pregame party on the two streets that frame the stadium grandstand, Jersey and Van Ness, “insane … but in a good way.”
Even the press box dining room staff got caught up in the moment: When Drake C. Toll, a faux leopard fur-wearing member of the Bananas’ on-field foils, the Party Animals, ducked in for a cold drink, the women behind the buffet line greeted him with a chorus of “woos” usually heard only from bachelorette party attendees.
“I let myself enjoy it for about 12 seconds,” said Cole, a professed perfectionist. “It was a nice, long 12 seconds.”
Proof of concept
On the eve of the game, Cole gathered the Bananas’ traveling party — 200 members strong — in Fenway’s centerfield grandstands. Clad in his trademark yellow tuxedo and bowler hat, he turned an otherwise routine logistics meeting into a pep rally.
“This is the biggest challenge we’ve ever had, and as you know, when you have challenges, everything speeds up,” Cole said. “The great performers know how to slow things down.”
For the Bananas, success has come at warp speed, albeit on a measured scale. The show is tailored to a intimate fan experience, a feat made easier by cozy venues such as the Bananas’ homefield, Savannah’s Grayson Stadium, and Gwinnett’s Coolray Field, a minor league ballpark. The game at sprawling Fenway, along with those at five other Major League parks on the Bananas’ 2024 schedule, is what Cole considers the truest tests of his Banana Ball concept.
“People scream for us no matter where we go; they love it,” said pitcher Kyle Luigs, a Savannah native who’s been with the Bananas since they were a college summer league team. “Put us here in Fenway and we want them to break the sound barrier.”
The Bananas delivered an ear-splitting performance in their only previous appearance in a Major League stadium, at Houston’s Minute Maid Park in March. Astros great Roy Oswalt made a cameo in the game — as did Hall of Famer Roger Clemens — and Oswalt compared the energy from the crowd of 41,000 to what he experienced pitching there in the World Series.
Even so, Houston was a learning experience for the Bananas. The club manages most aspects of the game experience when on the road, from ticketing to merchandise sales to the audio-visual presentations. At Minute Maid Park, the Bananas’ general admission seating policy proved tricky, with thousands of fans scrambling for the best seats when the gates opened and souring the experience for some.
To avoid such chaos at Fenway, the ticketing team made every seat — from those behind home plate to those atop the Green Monster — a reserved seat.
Credit: Adam Van Brimmer
Credit: Adam Van Brimmer
Another Houston lesson the Bananas applied Saturday was to be judicious about introducing elements that slow down the game. Banana Ball is designed to play nine innings in under two hours. Too many special appearances or celebratory dance routines, and the game is cut short by the time limit.
Guest cameos Saturday were limited to former Bananas with Red Sox connections. Bill “Spaceman” Lee, the 77-year-old Sox icon, pitched half an inning in his first appearance since a heart condition led to his collapsing in the Bananas bullpen during a 2022 game.
An inning later, slugger Jonny Gomes, a 13-year big leaguer, grounded out. In the eighth, a kilt-wearing Jonathan Papelbon pitched a third of an inning.
“The priority for us is to deliver the experience fans hope for,” Cole said.
One fan familiar with the Bananas experience, Brad Benson, harbored no fears about the team delivering “the goods” in their Fenway debut.
He traveled to Boston from Omaha, Nebraska specifically for the game. A former Atlanta resident, he’s seen the Bananas play multiple times in Savannah as well as in Des Moines, Iowa and Peoria, Illinois.
“To see Banana Ball in such an iconic stadium, I had to make the trip,” he said. “This one will be hard to top. But I’m pretty sure they will.”
Credit: John Tlumacki/Boston Globe
Credit: John Tlumacki/Boston Globe
Credit: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe
Credit: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe
Credit: (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe
Credit: (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe
Credit: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe
Credit: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe
Credit: John Tlumacki/Globe Staff
Credit: John Tlumacki/Globe Staff
Credit: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe
Credit: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe
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