Stream It or Skip It: ‘Bananaland’ on ESPN+, a Joyous Ride-Along With the Most Entertaining Team in All of Baseball

Even if you love the game, you have to admit: baseball can get boring. BananaBall never gets boring. In Bananaland, a new five-episode documentary series debuting on ESPN and ESPN+ this week, we get a look behind the scenes at the Savannah Bananas, a baseball team with the goal of turning the national pastime into a spectacle of non-stop entertainment. From on-field dancing to acrobatic pitching to completely re-writing the rule book, there’s nothing the Bananas won’t do to try and give their fans a good time, and spread the gospel of baseball to new generations.

BANANALAND: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A man clad head-to-toe in yellow–yellow suit, yellow tuxedo shirt, yellow bowler hat–opens the game to a minor-league ballpark, and strides onto the field with a dreamy look on his face. It’s Jesse Cole, the co-owner and mastermind behind the Savannah Bananas, and he looks like a man with a plan. “In essence, this is a love story,” he narrates, as footage plays of him high-fiving fans and enjoying live game action, “love for the fans, love for the game. I’m still just a kid trying to make his dad proud.”

The Gist: In 2015, the minor-league baseball team in Savannah, Georgia–the single-A Savannah Sand Gnats–left town, moving to Columbia, South Carolina and leaving Savannah’s Grayson Stadium without a tenant. Jesse and Emily Cole had an idea to fill it. They launched the Savannah Bananas, a collegiate summer league team, and vowed to make games fun for everyone, with non-stop entertainment both on and off the field. They succeeded wildly, and the Bananas have sold out every single game they’ve played in Savannah–and Bananaland picks up as they’re about to take their special brand of baseball on the road.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Despite this being a documentary, it’s got the spirit of some of the best baseball movies out there. Scenes of a ragtag bunch of lovable weirdos coming together recalls Major League and Bull Durham, or maybe even non-baseball comedies like Old School.

Our Take: Jesse Cole has a dream, and if you spend any amount of time listening to him talk about it, you’re bound to get on board. The co-owner of the Savannah Bananas has a long background in baseball; he played high school and college ball, and harbored dreams of making the majors until a shoulder injury his senior year ended his big-league aspirations. At age 23, he became the general manager of the Gastonia Grizzlies, a collegiate summer baseball team that he described as “the worst team in professional baseball” upon his arrival. During his ten-year tenure there, he worked tirelessly to make the team more entertaining, realizing that “we’re not in the baseball business, we’re in the entertainment business,” and counting his idols as “Walt Disney, P.T. Barnum and Bill Veeck.”

When the stadium in Savannah opened up in 2016, Jesse and Emily Cole saw the opportunity to take their vision to the next level. They launched a new team, soon to be known as the Savannah Bananas, and nearly went broke doing so–falling more than a million dollars in debt and overdrawing their bank accounts before selling their house to fund the dream of a fun baseball team.

Their vision worked.

The Savannah Bananas have sold out every home game they’ve ever played, and have a waiting list of thousands dying to get in. Constant choreographed entertainment, dancing players and endless promotions are all geared towards making the fan experience special.

Even that wasn’t all the way to the dream, though.

In 2022, the Coles decided to take the Bananas’ show on the road, assembling two professional touring teams–the Bananas and their rivals, the Party Animals–to take on a barnstorming season reminiscent of the Harlem Globetrotters and Washington Generals. These games would be played by a new set of rules, known as “BananaBall”. Those rules–meant to speed the games up further and amp up the excitement–included such regulations as “no bunting”, “walks are now sprints”, “foul balls caught by fans are outs” and settling ties with a 1-on-1 duel between hitters and pitchers. All of this would have a two-hour time limit, though the first game played under the rules was “nine innings in ninety-nine minutes.”

The assembly of these touring teams takes up the second half of the first episode, and it’s a team-drafting montage worthy of Major League. A mixture of players young and old–some hoping for their big break, others seeking one last chance to play the game they love–are assembled to show off their chops not just as ballplayers, but as entertainers. This is a ballclub, but it’s also a touring circus, and the Bananas’ try-anything ethos is evident when they bring in 75-year-old former Red Sox pitcher Bill “Spaceman” Lee for a tryout, too.

Bananaland might just be the most fun I’ve had watching something sports-related in recent memory; the characters are hilarious, the mission infectious, and the whole venture is just an absolute blast. Jesse Cole talks of spreading his vision of BananaBall to something that can sell out major league ballparks; as implausible as that sounds, it’s hard not to find yourself believing he can do it.

Sex and Skin: A few shirtless ballplayers, and one player pitches in his underwear, but nothing that’s beyond PG. This is family entertainment!

Parting Shot: The Bananas have held their try-outs for their roadshow, and selected 40 players to fill the rosters of the Bananas and their rivals, the Party Animals. Manager Eric Byrnes gives a motivational speech to the players–they’ve been hired to have fun and to entertain, but they’ve got a job to do. The season is just about to start, and you’ll be itching to see it happen in the next episode.

Sleeper Star: Virtually everyone who appears on screen in the first episode is a first-rate, capital-C Character, but perhaps none more so than the touring Bananas’ manager, ten-year MLB veteran Eric Byrnes, who carries himself with a manic guru dirtbag preacher-slash-carnival barker energy. He’s the perfect person to helm this team of goofballs. His star power is rivaled, though, by new pitcher Mat Wolf, a 34-year-old firefighter and “fifth-generation” rodeo clown who dazzles with an array of trick pitches thrown behind his back and between his legs.

Most Pilot-y Line: “We want the most talented players, but also the most entertaining players,” one front-office employee explains during their try-outs. “If we have a really good player, but they’re not interested in going in on a bit, or salsa dancing up to the batter’s box, we’re not interested.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. The first episode alone had me planning a trip to Savannah next summer. BananaBall looks like a blast in person, and Bananaland is pure joy.

Scott Hines is an architect, blogger and proficient internet user based in Louisville, Kentucky who publishes the widely-beloved Action Cookbook Newsletter.