Take me out to the Banana Ball game: Party Animals and Texas Tailgaters play in Baton Rouge on Aug. 8-9

Play ball! The Banana Ball World Tour, a fast and entertaining take on baseball, will return to the Capital Region next week with teams the Party Animals and the Texas Tailgaters facing off on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 8-9, inside LSU’s Alex Box Stadium. 

“Baton Rouge is special to me,” says Taj Porter, catcher for the Texas Tailgaters. 

The nostalgia hits for Porter, who calls Mandeville home and played baseball at Southern University from 2020 to 2022. And this homecoming is extra sweet, as he’s also playing against his former team, the Party Animals.

The Banana Ball World Tour teams are traveling across the country to play against one another in different cities that don’t normally have access to the games.

“Sharing something that we love so much with them in their city, in their place, is the coolest thing we can do,” says Bret Helton, pitcher for the Party Animals.

Helton, who has been part of the Banana Ball organization for several years now, says that in college baseball, everything is about players’ careers and stats—whereas Banana Ball is all about the fans’ experience.

“We built this show kind of from scratch with all of us,” he says.

And it is a show. Spectators can expect dancing, walk-out songs, flips and tricks. While Helton says that for the most part, the team practices baseball as if they were playing for a collegiate or Major League Baseball team, practice becomes a rehearsal for the upcoming show once they’ve arrived at a new city.

“It’s a little bit of ideas, a little bit of rehearsal, a little bit of baseball, all kind of mixed into one,” Helton explains. He teases some Louisiana-themed dances and music for next week. “Now, we’ve got a couple more secrets hidden about what we’re going to do in Tigerland … and it’s going to be fun.”

Porter says that while the show is a spectacle, it isn’t less of a game.

“It’s definitely still very competitive, and we have a lot of high-level athletes that are going at each other every day,” he says.

Banana Ball games have different rules: there’s no stepping out or bunting. Players can steal first base, and fans can even catch a foul ball to get a player out. It’s fast, entertaining and action-packed. It’s so fast, in fact, that the games have a two-hour time limit.

“If you take your eyes off the field, you’re going to miss something,” says Zach Watson, centerfielder for the Texas Tailgaters. He’s also been looking forward to this homecoming. He hasn’t been back in Alex Box Stadium since he played at LSU from 2016 to 2019.

“My wife is going to be there, my whole family, all my friends are going to be there,” Watson says. “It’s going to be an amazing time.”

He understands that some people can have reservations about Banana Ball at first. Even during tryouts, he wasn’t quite sure about it.

“I actually wasn’t too fond of it because I’m not a big dancer,” he says.

In fact, he learned how to do a flip the week before tryouts. But his favorite memory is his first backflip catch last year while his previous team, the Firefighters, was on ESPN. 

“It’s truly been a blessing, joining Banana Ball,” Watson says.

For newcomers, the players recommend going to a game and being open-minded to this new take on baseball. 

“You’re going to see something on that field that night that you’ve never seen before on a baseball field,” Porter says.

Helton says to check on the teams’ and players’ social media accounts to get a feel for what to expect, but that going in person to check out Banana Ball is the most important, “because there’s only really one way to get the real feel of what’s going on,” he says.

Next week, the Party Animals and Texas Tailgaters will face off in Alex Box Stadium on Aug. 8-9 at 7 p.m. Hop on StubHub or another ticket site to witness Banana Ball in the flesh, or add your name to the Banana Ball ticket interest list for a chance to score a ticket for next year’s season.