Banana Ball

Banana Ball, or the Banana Ball Championship League (BBCL) from 2026 on,^[1][2] is an exhibition barnstorming baseball league based in Savannah, Georgia.^[3] The league plays most of their games at Grayson Stadium since its inaugural season. The league currently has 5 teams, the Savannah Bananas, the Party Animals, the Firefighters, the Texas Tailgaters and The Visitors, similar to the decades-long format of basketball's Harlem Globetrotters and their partner touring team, the Washington Generals.^[4] The league has been featured by ESPN, The Wall Street Journal, CNN 10, and Sports Illustrated because of its sports entertainment and viral videos.^[5]

The Bananas were a part of the Coastal Plain League (CPL) West division.^[6] where they won three Petitt Cup championships (2016, 2021, and 2022). However, after the growth of Banana Ball, the team transitioned entirely to exhibition games against their partner touring teams.

During the 2020 shortened Bananas CPL season, the organization debuted a second squad for Banana Ball games at home: the Party Animals, wearing black or pink uniforms. Previously, the Banana Ball games were played as intrasquad scrimmage games of the CPL Bananas pre-season. The creation of the new team gave the Bananas a true home or away opponent in its exhibition gamedays during most of the season. In 2024, the Party Animals were fleshed out as a more permanent team with its own slate of games outside of the Bananas tour.^[7]

Debuting on October 5, 2023, as part of the 2024 season launch night, the Firefighters wear firefighter themed uniforms, including firefighter helmets.^[8]

Introduced in June 2024, the Visitors serve as opponents for the Party Animals or Bananas in games when the other team faces the Firefighters.^[7] The Visitors wear generic gray uniforms with blue numbering (with no names in the back of jerseys) and constitute the minor league training wing of the Bananas organization.

The Texas Tailgaters were announced on October 3, 2024, during the 2025 season launch night, as the 4th team of the BBCL and the 5th overall. The Tailgaters are the first semi-regional team to launch since the original Bananas, playing most of their games in Texas, with other games in college towns across the Southeast.^[1][9][10]

The game of Banana Ball has many rules that they have made over time.^[11] This format has been used since June 2020 at home and for most touring exhibition games. Refinements have been made over time—the challenge rule was introduced in 2023. The current "banana ball" rules are, as amended:^[12]

1. Games are won by points, instead of runs: the team that scores the most runs in an inning gets one point, except in the final inning when every run counts as one point. The final inning may be earlier than the ninth inning, due to the time limit noted below. When the home team has scored enough runs to "win" any inning other than the final inning, the inning immediately ends.
2. There is a "two-hour" time limit; no new inning may start after 1 hour and 50 minutes have elapsed. Once an inning starts, it is played to completion.
3. Batters cannot step out of the batters box. Doing so results in an automatic strike.
4. Batters cannot bunt. Doing so results in an automatic ejection.
5. Batters can attempt to steal first base at any point during their at bat, including on passed balls or wild pitches.
6. Walks are called "sprints". After ball four, the batter is allowed to advance as far around the bases as he can while the ball is sequentially thrown to all of the fielders other than the pitcher, starting with the catcher. The ball remains dead, with the batter-runner not liable to be put out, until the four infielders and three outfielders have each touched the ball. This often results in the batter-runner advancing to second base on the sprint.
7. No mound visits are allowed.
8. Foul balls caught by fans are counted as outs.^[13]
9. Ties are broken by a "showdown tiebreaker", an abbreviated extra innings format. Each team's half-inning during the showdown ends with any out or with any run scored by the batter—if the batter puts the ball in play, he must attempt to score. A batter who draws a walk advances to second base, with the hitting team allowed to send a new batter to the plate. At any point during the showdown, a home run hit over the outfield wall immediately ends the game in favor of the batting team. If the game is still tied after a showdown round, another showdown round is played, until there is a winner. Scenarios differ by showdown round: In showdown round 1, each team selects a pitcher and hitter to face off, with the defense fielding only their pitcher, catcher, and a single fielder. In showdown round 2, the fielder is eliminated. In showdown round 3 (and later), the fielder returns, but each half-inning starts with the bases loaded, and each run scored counts as a point.
10. Each team is allowed to challenge certain calls by the umpires: whether a ball was fair or foul, whether or not a runner was tagged out (at home plate or on the basepaths), and whether a ball was caught or not. A team retains its right to challenge until they lose a challenge, after which they may not challenge any calls for the remainder of the game. The fans can also challenge one play per game, as determined by a fan who is chosen to initiate the challenge. Challenged plays are reviewed by the broadcast team, who relay their ruling to the umpire.
11. "The Golden Batter Rule" – One time in a game, a team may send any hitter in the lineup to bat in any spot. The goal of this rule is so a team can have their best hitter hit when the game is on the line.

Other non-standard baseball activities are sometimes used for entertainment purposes. For example, an August 2023 game featured an at bat where the pitcher and batter played rock paper scissors before each pitch: each time the pitcher won, the batter had to bat from the opposite side of home plate as he normally would, and each time the batter won, the pitcher needed to announce what type of pitch he was about to throw. Other entertainment includes elaborate walk-ups starting from the stands, in-game dances, and run celebrations.