Banana Ball

Informationen zum Autor Jesse Cole is the founder of Fans First Entertainment and owner of the Savannah Bananas. He has been featured on over 1,000 podcasts and delivers keynote speeches all over the world, and he lives in Georgia and North Carolina with his wife, son, and two daughters. Klappentext "The Savannah Bananas have peeled back the game of baseball and made it fun again. ... The Bananas throw out a first banana rather than a ball. Their first-base coach dances to 'Thriller' or Britney between innings. Players run into the crowd to hand out roses. And the rules themselves are bananas: if a fan catches a foul ball it's an out; and players might go to bat on stilts or wearing a banana costume. And their fans absolutely love it. ... For the first time in this book, Jesse reveals the ideas and experiences that allowed him to reimagine America's oldest sport by creating a phenomenon that is helping fans fall in love with the game all over again"-- Leseprobe Chapter One The Beginning This is a love story, and it starts in the comfortable three-bedroom Massachusetts home I shared with my father. I was a rail-thin nine-year-old boy and, late every afternoon, my ball cap on straight and a baseball held firmly in hand, I stared at the doorknob of the front door. I waited anxiously for it to turn, signaling Dad's return home from work. My first love was playing baseball with my dad. It didn't matter how I was doing in school, whether my friends were around, or how boring my day had been. He was there for me every single day. I could count on my dad . . . and I could count on baseball. I still can. In 2015, my wife and I started a college summer-league team. We sold out every game from the beginning. We won championships. For many people, that would have been enough. Somewhere along the way, baseball had become so painful to watch that even the announcers seemed exhausted from its plodding pace. Why not, Emily and I felt, try something different? We wanted to jazz up the game and put fans on the edge of their seats-and make them smile. Our baseball team, we quickly learned, seemed like a grassroots movement, and it was also our wake-up call. Slumbering baseball fans craved change to the game-at least the fans who still cared-and the Bananas somehow struck a nerve. Now we're an elite pro team. We're touring the country and, one day, the world. We have our own Banana Ball rules, where we get rid of the game's laborious moments and give fans more of what they really want-fast-paced excitement and things they never imagined seeing on a baseball field. We think more and more talented players will want to go bananas because our game gives them a chance to show off their personalities while also creating the kind of fun they enjoyed as kids. My younger self couldn't have imagined the life I have with the Bananas. I mean, I thought I loved the game. But maybe what I really loved were memories of a carefree time, when the stadium lights flickered on, spikes clickety-clacked on the sidewalk, and the freshly mowed grass had the sweetest smell. Baseball fans still live for that sound the ball makes when it pops into a glove, for the sound of the crowd. When I was a kid, the game made me feel so alive. But long before I owned seven yellow tuxedos, long before reporters from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times shared features on our outrageous entertainment business, long before ESPN produced a five-part documentary on how our baseball revolution came about, I stared at that doorknob. And I waited. When I was a kid, playing baseball was the only time when everything seemed normal. Some people these days say the Bananas are out to save baseball for the next generation. Maybe that's true. But I know this for sure: baseball saved my childhood. When I was eight years old in my hometown of Scituate, Massachusetts...

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The Savannah Bananas have peeled back the game of baseball and made it fun again.

This is their story.

For his entire childhood, Jesse Cole dreamed of pitching in the Majors. Now, he has a life in baseball that only he could have imagined: he met the love of his life in the industry; they shaped Savannah, Georgia's professional team into the league champion Savannah Bananas; and now the Bananas have restyled baseball itself into something all their own: Banana Ball.

Fast, fun, and outrageously entertaining, Banana Ball brings fans right into the game. The Bananas throw out a first banana rather than a ball. Their first-base coach dances to Thriller or Britney between innings. Players run into the crowd to hand out roses. The ticket is food all-inclusive! And the rules themselves are bananas: if a fan catches a foul ball it's an out, and players might go to bat on stilts, or wearing a banana costume. And their fans absolutely love it.

But the reason this team is on the forefront of a movement is less about the play on the field and more about the atmosphere that the team culture creates. For the first time in this book, Jesse reveals the ideas and experiences that allowed him to reimagine America's oldest sport by creating a phenomenon that is helping fans fall in love with the game all over again.

This is a story that's bigger than baseball, and bigger than the yellow tuxedo Jesse wears as the "ringmaster" of every game. And to understand the movement, you have to understand the story at its core. In Jesse's telling, it takes heart, creativity, joy (and a bit of tropical fruit) to make something wholly original out of one of America's great traditions. His story is part Moneyball, part Field of Dreams, part The Greatest Showman. It is a personal story, a creativity story, and the story of a business scrapping for every success. And it has several distinct love stories-love stories like Jesse and his father, Jesse and his wife, the team and the sport of baseball, the team and the fans.

This is Jesse calling his dad from the outfield after each Bananas game, and putting unending creativity into a team with the ultimate goal of bringing the Bananas to the professional ballparks he himself never got to play in. This is his story, of baseball, love, leadership, and going just a bit bananas for all.

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter One

The Beginning

This is a love story, and it starts in the comfortable three-bedroom Massachusetts home I shared with my father. I was a rail-thin nine-year-old boy and, late every afternoon, my ball cap on straight and a baseball held firmly in hand, I stared at the doorknob of the front door. I waited anxiously for it to turn, signaling Dad's return home from work.

My first love was playing baseball with my dad. It didn't matter how I was doing in school, whether my friends were around, or how boring my day had been. He was there for me every single day. I could count on my dad . . . and I could count on baseball.

I still can.

In 2015, my wife and I started a college summer-league team. We sold out every game from the beginning. We won championships. For many people, that would have been enough.

Somewhere along the way, baseball had become so painful to watch that even the announcers seemed exhausted from its plodding pace. Why not, Emily and I felt, try something different? We wanted to jazz up the game and put fans on the edge of their seats-and make them smile.

Our baseball team, we quickly learned, seemed like a grassroots movement, and it was also our wake-up call. Slumbering baseball fans craved change to the game-at least the fans who still cared-and the Bananas somehow struck a nerve.

Now we're an elite pro team. We're touring the country and, one day, the world. We have our own Banana Ball rules, where we get rid of the game's laborious moments and give fans more of what they really want-fast-paced excitement and things they never imagined seeing on a baseball field. We think more and more t…