SAVANNAH ― If imagination were a muscle, Savannah Bananas founder Jesse Cole might split every seam in his trademark yellow tuxedo with each mental flex.
Just don’t look too hard for creative genius behind the establishment of the Party Animals, the latest Banana Ball champions after winning a four-team postseason playoff that wrapped Sunday at Savannah’s Grayson Stadium. At their 2020 launch, the Party Animals were little more than the Bananas’ first foil, Banana Ball’s answer to the Harlem Globetrotters’ rival, the Washington Generals.
“We didn’t put a ton of thought into their brand,” Cole said. “We just needed a worthy opponent and loved the name.”
Cole didn’t neglect the Party Animals for long. Today, the baseball team has a passionate fan base drawn to them as the counter-culture alternative (think punk rock meets frat house) to the wholesome silliness that defines the Bananas. Two more recently created Banana Ball franchises, the Firefighters (established 2024) and Texas Tailgaters (2025), are building their own followings.
Now comes the next iteration. Two more teams, the Indianapolis Clowns and Loco Beach Coconuts, begin play in February, bringing the number of Banana Ball franchises to six. Enough to establish the Banana Ball Championship League meant to evolve Banana Ball from a barnstorming tour centered primarily on the OG boys in yellow to a collection of traveling franchises that each attracts its own fandom.
The recent playoffs were a dress rehearsal for that future. The Bananas lost in the opening round to the Firefighters, sending the Firefighters to the championship game versus the Party Animals. While Savannah Bananas gear remained the most popular garb among fans at the sold-out title game, merch in Party Animal pink and Firefighter red dotted the grandstands like brown spots on a banana peel.
The “Party Papa,” Loganville retiree Bob Goodyear, wears his love for the Party Animals on his sleeve — and chest and trouser legs and even on his head. He’s amassed a full Party Animals outfit a piece at a time over the last five years and retired all evidence of a previous Bananas fandom.
“When they started touring, everyone was a fan of the Bananas. It was like the Party Animals didn’t exist,” Goodyear said. “I didn’t feel like that was right.”
Credit: Adam Van Brimmer
Credit: Adam Van Brimmer
The expanded league will play games across 45 states and 75 stadiums next year with a goal of drawing 3.2 million spectators — up from 2.2 million in the just-concluded season.
Become ‘the talk of the town’
The Party Animals, in the words of their fur-wearing hypeman Drake C. Toll, began life as the “bad boys of Banana Ball.”
Their mascot is a costumed monkey named Pharty alleged to be the “gassiest mascot in sports.” Their house band, Party Down, plays rock ‘n’ roll and is fronted by a modern-day Joan Jett named Jenane. The team often enters the field during pregame introductions by jumping the outfield fence, and their uniforms are anything but uniform — a mix of cutoff sleeves, open-to-the-navel shirts, and too-long-in-the-dryer pants and shorts.
Credit: Daniel Varnado/For the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Daniel Varnado/For the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Over the last two seasons, with the formation of the Firefighters and the Tailgaters, the Party Animals have broken free of the Bananas to headline their own tour. They played 21 sellout games in nine college and minor league ballparks in 2025 and became the “talk of the town,” Toll said.
The Party Animals have connected with fans to eclipse the “bad boy” moniker and instead be associated with the “greatest party in sports,” a brand that can appeal to both 7-year-olds and 77-year-olds, Toll said.
The Firefighters and Tailgaters are following the Party Animals’ lead, carving out their own unique personas. The Calendar Crew, the Firefighters’ hunky male cheerleading squad, is the antithesis of the Bananas’ Man-Nanas dad bod cheer squad. Fire Line Live is the Firefighters’ drum line band, and their bat boy is a spotted white Dalmatian dog named Chief.
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
The Texas Tailgaters’ hook is the “greatest pregame in sports,” with cookouts, yard games and line dancing outside the stadium. Their band plays country rock and includes a fiddler, because as country music legends Alabama once sang, if you’re going to play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band. Their uniforms are denim, and their caps are shaped like Stetsons.
The Tailgaters’ manager, Joe Mikulik, left his longtime job as a minor league coach to lead the new team. He grew a bushy handlebar mustache and is known to take off his shirt and shoulder press beer kegs between innings. One of his assistants grills hot dogs in the first base coaching box when the Tailgaters are batting.
Credit: Adam Van Brimmer
Credit: Adam Van Brimmer
The Tailgaters already have a following in their namesake state. El Paso residents Will Lindsey and Carla Silva traveled to Savannah for the recent playoffs after catching a Tailgaters game this summer in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Lindsey, a former college ballplayer, instantly adopted them, even doing something he’s never done before — buy a team jersey.
“I played ball and know what wearing a jersey means, but this is different,” he said. “Fans are part of the fun.”
Beyond the Banana brand
Banana Ball’s founder, Cole, beams when he hears stories like Lindsey’s. Banana Ball’s parent company is named Fans First Entertainment, and his insistence on taking lessons from how and why fans embraced the Bananas and later the Party Animals has driven Banana Ball’s success.
Credit: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Credit: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution
The Party Animals have a larger TikTok following than any major league team, and their 2025 headliner tour sold out in minutes. The Firefighters and Tailgaters played before packed houses, even when the Bananas weren’t in the other dugout as well.
“People are excited about the game of Banana Ball and not just one brand,” Cole said.
He’s confident the newest teams will thrive as well. The Indianapolis Clowns are a historic nod to a Negro leagues team known for its novel attractions, including minstrel shows, player stunts and various pranks, like players in grass skirts, wigs, clown suits and clown face makeup.
The Coconuts will be beach-themed, complete with a grass skirt-wearing male cheerleading squad known as the Hula-gans.
“The brands in Banana Ball that aren’t the Bananas are the most important for the future of the sport,” the Party Animals’ Toll said. “The only way that we can grow is through adding teams in Banana Ball that build the same caliber of fandom as the Bananas.”
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