The social media and baseball stars, the Savannah Bananas and Party Animals, made their Albuquerque debut to a sold-out crowd at Isotopes Stadium, bringing Bananaland to the Land of Enchantment. The teams played on April 20 and 21, selling out the stadium both days.
Banana Ball is different from your typical game of baseball. There’s a pitcher and a batter, and the goal is to make it around the bases and back to home plate, but there are many different rules and flares in the game that make it the show it is.
11 rules govern Banana Ball, including one that states the game will not exceed two hours, so no new inning can start after the two-hour mark, and every inning is worth one point. The team that has the most runs per inning wins that inning.
The Bananas have Dakota Albritton, the world's tallest baseball player, who takes to the field on stilts. Albritton grew up playing baseball and decided to bring the stilts out to the Bananas tryouts in 2021 and it has been a sky-high highlight for fans since then.
“I was always, you could say, a weird kid. I always had crazy talents but I was always a baseball player,” Albritton said.
For one player, Albuquerque was not just another game, but a homecoming. Drew Gillespie, the Party Animals' pitcher, is a University of New Mexico baseball alumni and graduate of Sandia High School. Banana Ball may not be the ball game he grew up with, but Gillespie has thrown himself into it.
“I love all the tricks for our guys,” Gillespie said. “To not only be good at baseball to play at this level, but (also) to be willing to rip out a backflip or a between-the-legs catch is just incredible to me.”
Gillespie enjoyed being back in his hometown and took some of his teammates around Albuquerque when they first arrived.
“I took the boys over to my parents' house, and we had dinner,” Gillespie said. “Then we went over (to) the Dirty Bourbon. We had a good time.”
Gillespie finds that preparing for the games, training opportunities and new ideas can be from anywhere at any time.
“You can find your training anytime of the day … (like) at the bar, finding a new dance move to put into a show,” Gillespie said. “With baseball, that’s kind of the easier side of things: practice every day, (and) with the dances, keep up with the TikTok trends.”
Gillespie got his moment to shine, pitching at the bottom of the eighth inning just before the end of the game. In his stint on the mound, Gillespie struck out Jackson Olson, a fan favorite of the Bananas and resident Taylor Swift superfan.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Although striking out, Olson still had his noteworthy moments in the game with a walk-off in the second and a barehanded catch at the top of the eighth, living up to his Banana Ball celebrity status.
In an interview, Olson revealed his inner Swiftie, sharing that during the game, he planned to make a TikTok to “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” from Taylor Swift’s latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department.”
“I’m gonna walk from the crowd today and make a TikTok with that (“Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”),” Olson said. “I’ve already learned all the lyrics. I’m very dedicated.”
In the fifth inning, Party Animal Jorden Hussein cruised up to bat in authentic New Mexican style in a blue lowrider. But the swag of his ride wasn’t enough to get him on base and he had to ditch his wheels and make the walk of shame back to the dugout.
The Banana Ball shenanigans were never-ending with players constantly interacting with fans in the crowd and performing their dance routines on the field. The Savannah Bananas and Party Animals alike did a variety of routines, dancing to songs like “Love Shack,” “Raining Tacos” and “Baby Got Back,” for which the resident “Dancing Umpire,” Vincent Chapman, threw out some moves.
A highlight of the night was the Bananas dancing to “Splish Splash” by Bobby Darin at home plate. Equipped with a loofah and bar of soap, Malachi Mitchell, aka “Flash,” took a (clothed) shower beneath the stream of Albritton’s watering can, singing along to the song.
It’s truly the fans that make the game what it is. Banana, Noah Bridges, said that the fans are the best part of getting to play this game. He will occasionally join some of the fans in the crowd, he said.
“I’ll just chuck my glove into the crowd and go hangout with them, because if I’m not gonna hit, I’ll make myself useful with the crowd,” Bridges said. “If I was a kid and I came to a game like this, and a player treated me that way, I’d have been over the moon.”
Bridges isn’t the only one who sees how impactful the team is to kids. Albritton noted that kids quite literally look up to him, both physically and as a role model.
“Whenever I take the field, kids look at me like I’m a superhero,” Albritton said. “It shows everybody that it’s okay to be different.”
Banana Ball lets the players relive their childhood baseball days when they were carefree and simply playing for the fun of it. That’s what the game is all about: having fun and making someone smile.
“I describe it as like when you’re a kid and playing with your buddies in the neighborhood. It’s just straight up fun and you’re trying to be your best because you’re playing against your best friends … just come out here and have fun and play backyard baseball,” Bridges said.
Francesca Cicconetti is a beat reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @fran_cicconetti.
Elizabeth Secor is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @esecor2003.
Francesca Cicconetti is a freelance reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be reached on Twitter @fran_cicconetti
Elizabeth Secor is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted on Twitter @esecor2003
