Banana Ball: The Unbelievably True Story of the Savannah Bananas by Jesse Cole, with Don Yaeger.  Dutton. 269 pages. 2023
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This book is about the Savanah Bananas and what they call “Banana Ball”. The slogan for the Bananas is “Fans First. Entertain Always”. In the beginning, Jesse Cole had the persistent belief that if he could somehow get people to their ballpark in Savannah, they would have more fun than they had ever dreamed possible.
wWell, it’s working. The Bananas are selling out major league baseball and college football stadiums. A few weeks ago, they drew 102,000 fans at Kyle Field (the Texas A&M football stadium in College Station, Texas). The tickets are by lottery, and hard to get. I know this as we tried in vain to get tickets to the two August games at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.
Cole is the front man for the Bananas. His belief is that major league baseball had become too slow and boring (Note: this was before the pitch clock and other major league baseball rule changes). Baseball was no longer the game he grew up loving and playing.

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