COMSTOCK PARK — Noah Fisher’s family sat in Section 119 of LMCU Ballpark, home of the Detroit Tigers‘ High-A affiliate West Michigan Whitecaps — much like they did almost seven years earlier watching their son play at a near-empty Comerica Park.
Fisher, a Madison Heights native and graduate of Lamphere High, played shortstop that late June afternoon in Detroit as part of the 2018 Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association East-West All-Star game. A big-league, hometown sendoff before embarking on a collegiate career at Northern Kentucky and a life-changing summer of 2023 bouncing around independent pro ball.
But back to Thursday night: The Fisher family watched from just behind home plate, in a packed stadium, as their son sat behind a dugout a few sections over. He stood up, camera in his face, and began lip syncing to Toto’s “Africa” as he an older man, Rodney, walked onto the field together.
Both ripped off their shirts, Fisher’s black and neon pink Party Animals jersey falling to the dirt. He put on his helmet and was sprayed with a hose on his bare chest — featuring Old English “D” ink — before stepping into the batters box and driving the first pitch to center field.
Welcome back, Noah. Welcome to Michigan, Banana Ball.
“I got the old Tigers tattoo,” Fisher said. “Just so no matter where I’m at, I always remember home.”
New boys of summer
With the Savannah Bananas and their brand of alternate-rules baseball and flashy fielding fast becoming improbable boys of summer, Fisher, former Tigers farmhand Reece Hampton and their Party Animals squad faced one of their Banana Ball rivals, the Firefighters, for three games just north of Grand Rapids. In doing so, they brought their frenetic sport-meets-stage-meets-carnival to Michigan for the first time in its wild three-year history.
The crowd — a sellout almost as soon as it was announced in the winter — gobbled up every potassium-enhanced moment of the two-hour cavalcade that is Banana Ball.
“It’s amazing,” said Hampton, a 2018 12th-round pick of the Tigers who had two stints with the Whitecaps and also played independent ball before joining the Party Animals in 2023. “I’ve always said the past couple years, ‘We gotta do the Midwest, we gotta do Grand Rapids.’ And to see it actually happen is amazing.”
As the Tigers hosted the Cincinnati Reds at Comerica Park this weekend, the Reds’ home stadium went yellow in their absence. The Bananas — the originators of Banana Ball — faced the Tailgaters, the fourth member of the in-house league, in a two-game series Friday and Saturday at Great American Ballpark. Another major league park to cross off the Bananas’ list, as fan fervor continues to explode like a plantain-stuffed tailpipe.
Last year, the Bananas played in big-league parks in Boston, Cleveland, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia and Washington. So far this year, they’ve been to Cincy plus Atlanta, Kansas City, Missouri, and Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California. Still ahead this summer are returns to Boston, Houston, Miami, Philly and Washington along with first-time visits to Yankee Stadium in New York, Camden Yards in Baltimore, Rate Field in Chicago, Coors Field in Denver, PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Petco Park in San Diego, Busch Stadium in St. Louis and T-Mobile Park in Seattle. That’s 18 out of 30 big-league ballparks.
Which begs the question: When will Detroit host a Banana Ball party stop? It’s unclear, but there definitely is a desire to make it happen.
“313 Presents is committed to bringing the best entertainment to our venues, and we would absolutely have an interest in hosting Banana Ball in Detroit,” 313 Presents president Howard Handler told the Free Press in a statement Friday. “The unique blend of high-energy baseball, live entertainment, and community engagement that Banana Ball offers would be a perfect fit for our city and Comerica Park.”
To finally play at Comerica Park, where Hampton hoped he would get while playing in the Tigers’ system, would complete another unfulfilled dream.
“That’d be pretty cool. That’d be a fun trip to make,” he said. “And I’m definitely sure it’ll happen in the future.”
Trying to define Banana Ball
There is little that compares with the blend of showmanship and competition that comes with Banana Ball.
It’s not scripted like professional wrestling, though the outsized characters and sleeveless jerseys — and sometimes no shirts at all — evoke that blurring-reality TV genre of sports entertainment. There are no heels or faces, though, with teams comingling during afternoon warmups, when folks arrive for pregame meet-and-greets, during action on the field and long after the show ends at the postgame party, with players and fans and cast members celebrating together outside the stadium.
It’s also not Major League Baseball, from the altered rules (for example, score is kept on an inning-by-inning basis, with the team with the most runs in each of the first eight innings getting a point, and each run in the final inning counting as another point) to the time clock on games (no new innings can start more than an hour and 50 minutes after the first pitch) to the level of play.
But that doesn’t mean the games aren’t being played at a high level, nor does it mean the players are a bunch of weekend beer leaguers. Even if there may be a little in-game chugging to amp up the sold-out crowds in between behind-the-back catches, and quick pitches between synchronized dance moves on the mound.
Banana Ball lands somewhere between the original incarnation of the Harlem Globetrotters, with choreographed dancing and comedy skits, and the 1976 movie “The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings.” In that film, Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor and James Earl Jones are part of an ubertalented team of Black baseball players barnstorming from town to town during the sport’s segregation era. Credit yellow tuxedo-wearing Banana Ball founder Jesse Cole for borrowing equally from those, blending with the sensibility of Bill Veeck, P.T. Barnum, Walt Disney and Vince McMahon.
The Savannah Bananas play the Party Animals in Nashville, Tennessee
The Savannah Bananas play The Party Animals at Nissan Stadium as baseball’s most unique experience expands to major college and professional venues
Last weekend, Hampton hit four home runs in his hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, as the Party Animals played the Bananas. That included a memorable game-winner on ESPN2 that gave the Party Animals a season-series win over the Bananas for the first time.
While not an MLB stadium, Bank of America Stadium is home to the NFL’s Carolina Panthers, and the Bananas drew 148,000 fans for the series. They’ve also played football stadiums in Nashville, Tampa, Florida and Clemson, South Carolina. Every one of them sold out, just like everywhere they go on the road and all the home series at Grayson Stadium in Savannah, Georgia.
Before Thursday’s game, Fisher reminisced over that day in 2018 when he played at Comerica as a high schooler and how what he called “a leap of faith” has allowed him to play with the Party Animals.
“If somehow that full circle all the way back to us playing Banana Ball (in Detroit),” he said, “that would be the coolest thing ever. The coolest thing ever.”
‘Leap of faith’
Fisher didn’t ascend to affiliated pro ball with a big-league parent club, though he played in more than a half-dozen states during his runs in college summer leagues and independent teams. After his Staten Island FerryHawks played the Bananas in 2023, he felt like his career was winding down and at a crossroads. That’s when he got a direct message from the Bananas, inviting him to a tryout in Phoenix.
“That was in my point of indy ball where I was like, I don’t know if this is really for me. I don’t think I’m going after (the majors),” he said. “And I wasn’t going for the right reasons. I was going because I wanted to get picked up by an affiliate ball team and just having to have that title — like I made it, I made it out of here.
“But that was when I started to realize I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I took a leap of faith. I went to (the tryout). Nine days later, I got called for an offer for the Party Animals for the ’24 season, signed it away, and been this way ever since.”
And taken him on the rocket ship ride that is Banana Ball. And a singular “crazy moment” stands out in the strange trip he’s on now.
Last year, his first with the Party Animals, Fisher strode to the plate against the Bananas in Houston’s stadium, with 41,000 people screaming during his walk-up. It was the first Banana Ball game at an MLB stadium. A fan in a cowboy hat raced onto the field and was apprehended.
On the mound? An entirely different kind of Rocket and Texas gunslinger: 61-year-old pitching legend Roger Clemens.
“It was just surreal. Unbelievable,” Fisher said. “I faced Roger Clemens, which was also insane too. He walked me. Rocket had a little bit of trouble up there. But just those moments are so cool to look back on now.
“One day, I’ll tell my kids that. My kids are gonna grow up knowing baseball and knowing the history of it. I’ll say, ‘Hey, your dad faced Roger Clemens and then did a walk-up to Celine Dion two innings later.’”
As Fisher trotted down the line, Hampton raced all the way around from first base to score as Clemens watched helplessly. How? Why? Banana Ball rules require all nine players to touch the ball on a walk before they can make a play on a runner.
It’s a tale that sums up the craziness that is Banana Ball. Or at least comes close.
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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