Putting fans first

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, September 10th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Baseball and belief.

The Savannah Bananas sold out major league stadiums this past summer with their fast-paced version of baseball.

EICHER: Exhibition baseball is what the Bananas play; not minor-league ball, as I said yesterday. (Slipped on a banana peel there.) The minors feed the majors and even though they’re Bananas, they’re not a feeder league. They are their own thing.

MAST: They are and as the popularity of their brand of baseball has grown, several players have used the unique platform to talk about their belief in Christ.

I got to visit the Savannah Bananas and spoke with one of the players responsible for getting other players together to deepen their faith. It was back in 2021 that RobertAnthony Cruz got his first taste of fame.

AUDIO: Are you kidding me? No, really? That’s awesome.

He shared a video on TikTok. He was telling his dad he’d been signed to play minor league baseball with the Washington Nationals.

AUDIO: Congratulations son.

The post went viral. Cruz gained tens of thousands of followers.

Then just a year later, he shared some bad news:

CRUZ: So, I may have played my last game without knowing it.”

He was cut from the team and headed home to California. He settled in to make baseball coaching videos under the name Coach RAC.

That’s when he heard about tryouts for a team called The Savannah Bananas.

ANNOUNCER: This is the greatest show in sports. This is Banana Ball!

The Bananas started as a college summer league team. Owner Jesse Cole loved baseball, but also found it, well, boring.

So a decade ago he set out to solve that problem. Now he has his own league and his own game, Bananaball.

AUDIO: [Make some noise for tonight’s banana baby! (Cheers) ‘Ahhhhh Zavinyaaaaaaa’]

His formula? Put the fans first. Make it fun.

BANANA NANAS: Go Bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S

They have a cheer squad of retirement-age line dancers: the Banana Nanas, a marching band:

ANNOUNCER: Fly ball left center, D.R. Meadows with the ball, back pedaling, a back flip catch!!!

And outfielders regularly land backflips while catching the ball.

ANNOUNCER: There are no extra innings. Instead, it is time for the Showdown.

The action never stops. And the fans love it.

FAN: It's almost like, wow, somebody finally is in touch with the fan experience.

Cole says their ticket interest list has 3.2 million people on it. Fans who have scored a ticket line up at the gates two and a half hours before game time.

AUDIO: [Right this way, beep, thank you, beep]

Fans enter Grayson Stadium for a Savannah Bananas game. Photo by Lindsay Mast

But back in California a couple of years ago, RobertAnthony Cruz still wasn’t convinced the Bananas were for him. He and his wife prayed and talked. He went to the tryout. Turns out he and the Bananas were the perfect fit. Audio here from the Relatable podcast:

CRUZ: I did gymnastics growing up and I was able to incorporate a lot of the acrobatic stuff and then the Bananas are big on having a social media presence and I already had that.

He and his wife packed their bags for Savannah.

Bananaball player Noah Bridges says Cruz immediately made an impression:

BRIDGES: The first thing you know, we're like, Hey, man, you got something different about you. What's up? You love the Lord? It's like, yeah, love the Lord. And then we talk about it.

He and a couple of other players had tried to start team Bible studies but didn’t know how to lead or keep them consistent. They needed leadership.

Cruz stepped up. He had done Christian homeschool speech and debate growing up and studied ministry in college. And he knew from his time with the Nationals that believing players needed each other.

CRUZ: In this profession, specifically, it's a lot of travel, normally, not home on Sundays. So it started just with a need for community.

Five players committed to a weekly Bible study. Soon it grew to 10, then 20, then more.

CRUZ: This year we specifically started setting out to pray specific prayers, like, want to pray specifically for teammates by name? And so I felt like, God really put several teammates on a lot of our hearts to pray for specifically by name. And, you know, pray specific prayers. Like God, let me have a conversation with so and so this week. And he answered a lot of those prayers.

The studies got too big for Cruz’s house. They moved to the stadium and opened it up to the rest of the organization.

The Bananaball league is not Christian and doesn’t sponsor the studies. But the “fans first” mentality has an air of humility to it and the team encourages players to express who they are. You’ll see symbols of their faith in their eye black or tattoos. And players like Noah Bridges don’t seem shy about using their position to talk about Christ online or in person.

BRIDGES: I want to do this for the fans, because I want to serve them. You serve them, and the way I serve them is playing the game and then signing autographs, putting my favorite Bible verse on every ball.

And RobertAnthony Cruz says he sees a bigger plan in becoming a Banana—bigger than making it to the big leagues.

CRUZ: If I did things my way, I'd be in the major leagues right now, and I never would have done speech and debate. I never would have gone to college, even. So yeah, definitely was, was all part of God's plan, and I'm just happy to be a part of it.

Cruz and the other believing Bananas think there’s still room to grow. They say they’re praying now for even more opportunities to use their influence to the glory of God—in the stadium and beyond.

ANNOUNCER: This game is baseball by birth, fruit by name, worldwide phenomenon by the grace of God….

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lindsay Mast at Historic Grayson Stadium in Savannah, Georgia.

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