DENVER, Colo. — The Mile High City is welcoming the Savannah Bananas for the first time, and people are going bananas over this team, with Coors Field selling out both Saturday and Sunday.
Jesse Cole, owner of the Savannah Bananas, explains that there was demand to come to Denver and be in a world-class stadium with fans who like to have fun. People travel near and far to see this team in action, with Cole saying fans from 41 states will be in attendance this weekend.
"They'll be singing, they'll be dancing, they'll be walkouts. There'll be celebrations. They'll be trick plays. There'll be huge performances. There'll be surprises, you know, that's what we do. We put a ton of time into rehearsals to make sure our show is unique every night, because we have some fans who travel around the country with us, so they just go to every single stadium all around the country, like the Deadheads back in the day with Grateful Dead," Cole said.
Starting the team in 2016, Cole said it was a "tough start" as he and his wife sold their house, emptied their savings account, and were sleeping on an airbed.
However, excitement would form over banana ball as people of all ages pack stadiums around the country to see this non-traditional baseball game.
"Our goal is to create the greatest show in sports, so every night we do 10 or 15 things we've never done in front of a live crowd," Cole said.
However, excitement spills beyond the ballpark as downtown businesses join in the fun, creating drinks and dishes with bananas. Ulteria, located at Union Station, specializes in tapas from the Iberian Peninsula, but this weekend they have a banana entremet on the menu.
"It's exciting," said Hutch Bercow, general manager at Ulteria. "It emphasizes the sense of community in the restaurant world for Denver, and to be able to participate in that community is exciting for us."
People are already going bananas over this dish, with Bercow saying it will be available until Sunday evening. Scripps News Denver spoke with two different families who were eagerly getting their merchandise on Saturday morning.
The Fredricks family took the six-and-a-half-hour drive from Durango to see this a-peeling show, describing it as a "once in a lifetime opportunity." They joined the line of fans to pick out merchandise before cheering on the team.
"We come up to Denver quite frequently for weekend visits, maybe long weekends, things like that, and this is the busiest it's been, I don't know, in the 7 or 8 years we've been coming up," Patrick Fredricks said.
For those who didn't get tickets but still want to join in on the fun, a watch party is taking place at McGregor Square over the weekend. Brooke Bishop, McGregor Square COO, said the in-stadium feed will be played on Sunday so fans can hear and see what's happening inside Coors Field.
"It's a great thing to bring a whole family down, maybe you've come down on a date night, but you haven't had a reason to bring everyone downtown in a while," said Bishop. "It is a reason to bring everyone down. You're going to be able to watch the game here, even if you didn't get tickets. It's really a great opportunity for the city and for us at McGregor Square as well.
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