Baseball with a twist: New franchise seeks player/performers with unique skills

Take a knee, Harlem Globetrotters and Savannah Bananas, there's a new sportstainment franchise set to launch.

The team, known as the Chicago Snowballs, is described as “professional baseball reimagined,” and to fill the roster, sibling owners Cherie and Paul Travis are looking for baseball player/performers with a unique set of skills.

Male and female players who can throw a strike on stilts, execute a backflip after fielding a flyball or play trombone and third base are the kind of athlete/entertainers Chicago Snowballs management wants to meet during tryouts next month in Rosemont.

“We're not looking for typical baseball players to try out. We want multitalented athletes with other skills,” reads the pitch on the team's website. “If you can play baseball and entertain a crowd, you're our kind of player.”

The Savannah Bananas, the Georgia-based exhibition baseball team founded in 2016, inspired the co-founders, whose staff includes head coach Mike Napoleon, the winningest high school baseball coach in Illinois history whose 39-year career, most of them at New Trier, included induction into the Illinois High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame and the Illinois Sports Hall of Fame. Per the website, the Snowballs' staff also includes coach Ernest Radcliffe, head baseball coach at Triton College; tumbling coach Emmanuel McGhee, head coach for the Jesse White Tumbling Team; and dance coach Pierre Lockett.

The team debuts in May at the Kerry Wood Cubs Field in Chicago, per published reports.

The team will be based in Chicago and will tour the Midwest. Male and female players receive equal pay and profit-sharing, according to the website.

Tryouts for the Chicago Snowballs take place Jan. 5-8, at The Dome at the Parkway Bank Sports Complex, 27 Jennie Finch Way, Rosemont. For more information, see chicagosnowballs.com.