No second bananas: How Chicago Snowballs combine baseball with a ‘traveling circus’ show

Choreographed dance moves, like a boy band from the ’90s.

An acrobatic “Lion King”-inspired Simba lift.

A juggling pirate on a unicycle.

Pyrotechnics and a snowball fight (real fire, but cotton balls, because after all, it’s summer).

This, plus more, was the scene on a recent Sunday afternoon at Wintrust Field in Schaumburg, where, yes, a baseball game happened to break out in the middle of it all, too.

The Chicago Snowballs — the local answer to the antics of the Savannah Bananas — are on an inaugural season tour to bring family-friendly “sportstainment” to baseball stadiums throughout the Midwest.

“We’re a traveling circus,” said Cherie Travis, the team founder and CEO.

Indeed, that’s the idea behind the two-hour-long spectacle that mixes live baseball with music, dance, comedic bits and other hijinks.

Paul Stancato, the team’s entertainment director, admits he was inspired by the showmanship of P.T. Barnum when he scripted the act in the months before opening day in May. The structure of the performance is maintained inning by inning, though new dance routines and extra flair are added all the time.

“We’re a show. Our narrative is playing baseball,” said Stancato, who serves as ringmaster “Greatest Snowman” — complete with a top hat and long jacket that might impress Barnum, or at least actor Hugh Jackman.

When he’s not on the field, Stancato is working behind the scenes in the dugout using a walkie-talkie to call cues to coaches, the stadium DJ, and lighting and graphics operators.

“The hardest part of it is that the baseball element is not scripted,” he said. “I had to learn how to write the script around the game being played out. That was the hardest part for me because I come from a world where everything’s got a time and a place and a step and a nuance to it.”

An Orland Park native who is now a director and choreographer based in New York, Stancato came back home to help launch the Snowballs after his wife saw an ad for the Banana-like team and thought his eclectic background would be a perfect fit. One of his first jobs on stage was as a blue man in the Blue Man Group.

While players still take batting practice like any other baseball team, Stancato holds rehearsals to perfect their dance moves, often drawing inspiration from what’s trending on TikTok and Instagram.

“I played sports when I was a kid, but I never pursued it beyond high school,” said Stancato, a Marist graduate. “To ask a bunch of athletes — who this was their main focus for their entire lives — to listen to a guy that comes from the theater and says, ‘I’m going to build you a show. There’s a little nuttiness in there. You kind of have to get on the crazy train with me to go there.’ And they all did.”

Among the first to step right up was Rick Petricca, 33, of Arlington Heights, who has been around baseball for as long as he can remember. His mom started pitching whiffle balls to him in the backyard at age 3. His dad — a longtime coach and author of a hitting manual — is a Cubs season ticket holder who has been taking him to games for almost as long.

Petricca played baseball at Prospect High School and for the club team at Indiana University. But it may have been his acting chops that guaranteed him a spot on the roster with the Snowballs following tryouts at the Rosemont Dome in January.

Part of his initial online application to the team was a video juggling three snowballs and throwing them at a neighbor’s tree from his backyard.

He also sent video of singing and dance routines from his time in the high school show choir.

“I was itching to get back in the game. I wanted to join some men’s leagues now that I just moved out to the suburbs, back to Arlington Heights,” said Petricca, an information technology manager who just welcomed his first child in April.

Instead, he’s found himself playing in front of thousands of kids and parents — the moniker “Slick Rick” is on the back of his Snowballs jersey — while he keeps fans engaged on social media by throwing baseballs over his house in hopes of landing them in a bucket on the other side.

Players were selected for both their baseball and off-the-field talents. Of the 600 that submitted an application, 100 were asked to come to tryouts, and 40 were chosen for the Snowballs and the rival Rocket Squirrels. They range in age from 20 to 47. Both men and women are on the teams.

“The way we looked at it … if the baseball was not as good, they had to have a whole lot more,” Travis said. “Or if you had a really great baseball player, we’ll teach him to dance.”

The Snowballs organization counts among its crew several Jesse White Tumblers: umpire Deandre Kelly, 22, who will soon return for the next round of “America’s Got Talent” following the tumbling team’s viral appearance last month; and Rayquan Minor, 27, who plays second base.

“I haven’t played baseball since I was in eighth grade,” said Minor, recalling park district Little League at Cabrini Green. “But I got on the team because of my energy, my entertainment and my wow factor. … I’m a great learner.”

White, the former Illinois secretary of state, is on the Snowballs’ advisory board, and Emmanuel McGhee, the tumbling team’s head coach, is also a coach for the Snowballs.

Travis didn’t take a linear path to ownership of a startup baseball team. She’s an attorney, real estate investor, instructor at the Chicago Police Academy, former assistant general counsel for the Cook County Sheriff’s Department, and one-time commissioner of Chicago Animal Care and Control under the Richard M. Daley administration.

After watching an interview with Savannah Bananas founder/owner Jesse Cole, Travis thought there could be a market for a similar brand of family-friendly entertainment here.

She remembers arriving early in the morning on the first day of tryouts to a packed parking lot.

“They had hobby horses and Superman uniforms. And we were like, ‘They get it. They get it. They understand exactly what this is.’”

“It is all about having fun.”

While the Snowballs look for a permanent home stadium, the traveling circuit so far has taken them as far as Huntingburg, Indiana; Clinton, Iowa, and downstate Normal and Peoria. Their remaining schedule includes stops in Joliet Aug. 15-16, Crestwood Aug. 27, and Geneva Aug. 29-30.

cplacek@dailyherald.com