The Savannah Bananas have a South Side sellout. Here’s how to watch their stopover in Chicago
Another weekend in which the Savannah Bananas liberate a house of losing baseball. Rate Field, home of the flailing Chicago White Sox, hasn’t hosted sustained fun in quite some time. Enter Friday and Saturday batches of Banana Ball in front of sellout crowds. Here’s how to tune in and what area newcomers need to know:
How to watch the Banana Ball World Tour
- Venue: Rate Field — Chicago
- Games: Aug. 15 and 16
- Broadcast: 8 p.m. ET, Friday
- TV: ESPN2
- Streaming: Fubo
- Watching in person? Get tickets on StubHub.
ESPN2 broadcasts are also available with an ESPN+ subscription.
We’ll be seeing more Banana Ball in the coming weeks, as TNT Sports ordered an additional 19 broadcasts across August and September. The Savannah Bananas really have internet virality figured out — even their face-plant errors do big numbers.
Below is our season-long 2025 explainer on Banana Ball, modified for the Chicago crowd. If you’re already acquainted with the Bananas spectacle, consider this an itemized reminder, as well as an open space for stray Lucille Bluth quotes. If you’re new to all this, though, here’s what to expect from a lively remix of America’s pastime. Also, check out Brittany Ghiroli’s feature from Banana Ball in Baltimore. She penned a visceral breakdown of the strange phenomenon.
Who are the Savannah Bananas?
Our peeled protagonists are independent and unaffiliated with MLB. They used to compete as members of the Coastal Plain League, a collegiate summer baseball collective based in the South Atlantic. By 2023, the Bananas split (yup) from that league and shifted into full-time exhibition ball. Why be the life of someone else’s dreary luncheon when you can throw your own lampshade-on-head banger?
Are the White Sox involved?
No, and that’s all right. The 2025 White Sox are very bad, just like the ’24 Sox were before them. Retired MLB players tend to pop out at Banana Ball games, though, adding a local flair to each ballpark on the tour. Is that low-hanging fruit for local nostalgia? In lesser hands, maybe, but the fruit in question here is a glorious yellow banana, and the former players really do bring a palpable enthusiasm to each outing.
So, who could be on call this weekend? Does anyone know what Joe Crede is up to? Get Jermaine Dye’s agent on the phone! Listing off underrated White Sox and different members of the 2005 World Series team is somebody’s love language, somewhere, maybe.
It doesn’t have to be a baseball player, either. Peyton Manning snuck down to the dugout when Banana Ball hit Denver, and the Bananas just visited Broncos training camp as well. Your move, Ben Johnson.
Who do the Bananas actually play?
The Bananas face off with a short rotation of league-owned partners. This weekend’s games are against The Firefighters. What’s a goon to a goblin? What’s a fire extinguisher to a giant potassium stick? We don’t have that answer yet, but stay tuned as our research progresses. The Firefighters and Bananas play Friday and Saturday, but only Friday night is televised.
Other partners like the Texas Tailgaters and Party Animals are steadily building out their own identities, too. The Tailgaters put a barbecued southern twang on their misadventures. The Party Animals have a mascot named “Pharty.”
Wait … Pharty the Party Animal?!
Would we ever lie to you, budding Banana Baller? No, we would not:
Is this baseball’s version of the Harlem Globetrotters?
Kind of. The game itself is unscripted and (somewhat) competitive. The Bananas and their opponents do indeed keep score. Still, proceedings go off the rails right quick, and we’ll find precious few fans stressed about bullpen matchups or bad baserunning.
Are there any weird rules to know about?
Of course there are. For starters, no bunting. That’s an automatic out. No mound visits, because that’s a waste of time. And no games exceeding the two-hour mark, unless a tiebreaker is needed. Fair enough. Now, for the true loopiness. Here’s a five-pack of extra-unique Banana bylaws:
- Rather than adding up the total number of runs, Banana Ball is scored by points. The winner of each inning gets one point. Individual runs only count on the scoreboard in the final frame.
- Batters can steal first base on a wild pitch. Better yet, there are no walks. Instead, bask in the splendor of the ball-four sprint — would-be walkers jet around the bases, and every defensive player must touch the baseball before they can tag the runner out. This ends up looking like a furious around-the-horn toss, with all three outfielders sprinting in to complete the drill.
- Spectators can record outs with a clean catch of a foul ball. This maximizes fan participation and encourages everyone to focus on the diamond.
- Each side gets one use of the “golden batter.” That puts a preferred hitter at the plate, regardless of where they’re at in the batting order. This ups the stakes when at-bats matter most.
- Tie games are decided by a showdown. It’s one batter versus one pitcher, with a singular fielder behind him. Yeah, that dude has to cover deep fly balls and pulled grounders in equal measure.
Is anything as it seems? Do they even play with a bat and ball? What is happening?!
Existential dread wilts in Bananaland. This is the team that turns strikeouts to potassium. Trust that this action is informed by a strange, unshakable love for baseball.
Will we recognize any of these Bananas?
None of the current players achieved MLB fame, but several have established themselves as comic performers, internet personalities and delightful novelties. Dakota Albritton is the best known of the Banana bunch, because he charts at 10-foot-9 on his trademark stilts. Seeing is believing, and oh, how we will now believe:
Wait, they really play like this?
The stilts are just the tip of the iceberg, if that iceberg were a colossal frozen banana. Here is a limited list of Banana Ball occurrences:
- Trampoline pitchers
- Literal flamethrowers
- Synchronized twerking (umpire included)
- First dates in the middle of at-bats
- “Top Gun” recreations
- Gymnastic splits (to shrink the strike zone, of course)
- Musical performance (from the Stephen Schwartz original songbook)
- Walks on the yellow carpet (“Dolce and Banana”)
Come for the Bananas, stay for Ham Porter or Travis Hunter. We may even wake up every evening with big smiles on our faces:
Yeah, a locally originated band could pop out in addition to the retired baseball heroes. If Chicago suburbanites Plain White T’s happen to barge in, just don’t say we didn’t warn you.
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