Updated on: July 5, 2026 / 7:00 PM EDT
/ CBS News
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The Savannah Bananas are all about family. Sure, this exhibition baseball team is also about the game. Its players demonstrate incredible athletic ability — tossing their gloves aside and catching pop-ups with their bare hands while performing a backflip, connecting with a pitch and running to first base on stilts, catching balls in the infield and bouncing it between their legs before throwing it to first.But for the Savannah Bananas, the game is about more than the final scoreboard. For them — and the other teams who play the derivation of the game they have branded "Banana Ball" — baseball is about bringing together people of all ages and entertaining them."There are so few things in life that you can bring multiple generations to and they can connect over," said Emily Cole, wife, business partner, and co-owner of the Savannah Bananas with Jesse Cole. "One of the most fulfilling things for us is hearing from a family that the toddlers came, mom and dad came, and they brought their parents or they brought their in-laws. And they all sat down for a few hours together and connected." Banana Ball certainly has found an audience: the games have sold out Major League Baseball stadiums, including Fenway Park in Boston and Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, where they played to a completely sold-out, standing-room-only crowd of 45,000 last fall.In between the action of trick plays on the field, Banana Ball has programming for everyone. Before a pitch is even thrown, the players honor the Banana Baby, a local infant dressed in a banana costume who's lifted aloft while players kneel around and "The Circle of Life" plays. During the game, the Banana Nanas showcase grandmas on the field doing choreographed dance routines. As players step up to the plate to bat, their walk-up routines include elaborate lip-synching to artists like Kendrick Lamar, the Village People, and Taylor Swift.Owner Jesse Cole says it is all in service of bringing generations together.
