Getting dragged to all her big brother\u2019s baseball games drove Sydney Dahlinger Bananas.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, she took the wheel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes the game funner,\u201d the 12-year-old explained to me on Blake Street, just before the Savannah Bananas played their Denver farewell Sunday at Coors Field.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to keep track of a baseball game. It can\u2019t keep you interested the entire time. But they do the dances, the umps are fun \u2026 it just makes the game fun.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s wrong with that?<\/p>\n While the Bananas<\/a> sold out Coors twice over the weekend, the Rockies were busy getting stomped in Arizona by a combined score of 25-12.<\/a> The Local Nine are on a pace to lose 120 games.<\/p>\n The sun shines along the Front Range everywhere but the corner of 20th & Bleak these days. LoDo could sure use some light. A little joy.<\/p>\n The Bananas are a barnstorming baseball team that\u2019s about fans and fun first. The team\u2019s got its own broadcast deals, including one with ESPN, 10.5 million followers on TikTok, and almost 4 million more on Instagram. (The Rockies\u2019 Instagram feed had about 570,000 followers as of Sunday afternoon.)<\/p>\n They aren\u2019t for everybody. In the bottom of the sixth of their tilt against The Firefighters, a guy standing on a barrel pitched to a batter swinging on stilts. An hour before first pitch, catcher Bill LeRoy warmed up by racing into the upper deck with the public-address microphone. From there, he launched in a banana-tossing contest \u2014 whoever could land more fruit inside a fan\u2019s oversized pants down at field level was the winner. If that\u2019s what you want when somebody takes you out to the ballgame, the \u2018Nanas are in your wheelhouse.<\/p>\n Apparently, they\u2019re in a bunch of wheelhouses. Coors Field has seen some lines. But Rockies security told me they\u2019d never seen anything quite like Sunday morning, when a queue snaked from the corner of 21st and Blake, then stretched all the way behind the ViewHouse Ballpark before curling back to Gate D again.<\/p>\n Which is why Logan Dahlinger, 16, came up with his family from Arvada at 10:30 in the morning for a 3:30 p.m. first pitch.<\/p>\n \u201cYou come to a Rockies game, obviously, and you can kind of get in whenever and it doesn\u2019t really matter,\u201d Sydney\u2019s older brother told me. \u201cI can see why they\u2019ve sold out football stadiums.\u201d<\/p>\n After Sunday? So can I. Like hockey and auto racing, the Bananas are good television, but even better theater in person. It\u2019s dance numbers, turntables, princesses, sleeveless jerseys, and right fielders in capes. It\u2019s a group hug at the mound for foster kids. It\u2019s Karaoke Night, every night. It\u2019s the Frankenstein offspring of Abner Doubleday and P.T. Barnum, God\u2019s answer to the eternal question of what would happen if Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball\u2019s wooden commissioner, had a sense of humor and a soul.<\/p>\n It\u2019s baseball blended with the unapologetic cornball of a state fair midway, the strut of pro wrestling, the wink of an NBA halftime show, the swing of a jazz funeral, and a pinch of Disney magic.<\/p>\n The dancing stops, but the music never does. When the PA plays \u201cTime of My Life\u201d from the movie \u201cDirty Dancing,\u201d the DJ turns the music down so everybody singing along can finish the chorus themselves<\/a>. If MLB is what we were, Banana Ball is who we are: loud, proud, deep-fried and buzzed. It\u2019s the most American version of the National Pastime you\u2019ll ever see.<\/p>\n The outcome\u2019s determined by points, not runs, and showy stuff is worth more of the former. If a fan catches a foul ball, you\u2019re out. Batters can\u2019t leave the box. There\u2019s a 2-hour time limit.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also dang hard work. Routines are practiced before the gates open the morning of a day game, then again during warm-ups. The Bananas\u2019 operation rolled into LoDo with two semis full of equipment and a crew of 140 traveling staffers.<\/p>\n Blake Street, meanwhile, immediately grasped the a-peel. Amy Holle of Erie even showed up dressed like a banana, a costume she said she\u2019s taken skiing. Her husband, Eric, says he wears a gorilla suit when they hit the slopes, so yeah, Savannah is their jam.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve watched a little bit on YouTube so that the kids knew what to expect,\u201d she said. \u201cWe keep telling our son that dancing is important. In case his baseball career doesn\u2019t work, he\u2019s got a fallback plan.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s worked out for Correlle Prime. A 12th-round pick of the Rockies in 2016, the 6-foot-5 Florida native played at Grand Junction as a 19-year-old, where his teammates included Ryan McMahon, Jon Gray, Dom Nunez and Raimel Tapia. In 2014, he played behind Kyle Freeland and Antonio Senzatela in Ashland, N.C. Instead of getting on Jeff Bridich\u2019s fast track, he wound up bouncing across leagues in three countries before hooking up with the Bananas.<\/p>\n Now 31, Prime doesn\u2019t get star-struck often. He did a bit of a double-take this past Saturday night when he saw Peyton Manning sitting with son Marshall and Marshall\u2019s friends in the home dugout at Coors. Cool dads do what cool dads gotta do.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you going to do the ManningCast again?\u201d Prime asked. \u201cI can\u2019t wait to see the ManningCast again.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, yeah, we\u2019re doing that again,\u201d PFM replied. \u201cMaybe Eli will try to come out when you guys are in New York in September.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat would be pretty cool,\u201d Prime said.<\/p>\n The Bananas phenomenon went viral the old-fashioned way \u2014 word-of-mouth, friend to friend, sister to brother, a text at a time.<\/p>\n Founder Jesse Cole and his crew worked the algorithms the way Greg Maddux worked the corners, sprinkling YouTube, Instagram and TikTok posts that made the distracted curious. Once they dug deeper, they got hooked.<\/p>\n Banana Ball players get evaluated not just for their stats, but for their entertainment value, fan engagement, social media followings, et cetera. If MLB is about WAR power, Banana Ball is about star power.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.denverpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/TDP-L-BANANAS-FIREFIGHTERS-DENVER_DSC4860.jpg?fit=620%2C9999px&ssl=1\")
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