CHICAGO — They backflipped. They boogied. They walked on stilts. They got the crowd to do jumping-jacks.
And then the Savannah Bananas let 2005 White Sox World Series champion Mark Buehrle pitch at Sox Park one more time.
“I won’t be able to wipe my ass with my arm for a week and a half,” said Buehrle, 46, recovering with a cold can of Coors Light in the dugout after the game.
Buehrle — who said he only plays first base these days in a softball beer league — gave up a hit but got the Bananas a key out on the way to a 3-2 win in front of a sold-out crowd Friday night of 40,000-plus fans, many who joined the Sox legend in wearing bright yellow, shamelessly, from head-to-toe.
“Not my color,” said Sox champion catcher A.J. Pierzynski, who caught for Buehrle in the World Series and now two decades later, in Banana Ball. “But this is awesome for baseball…the kids love it.”
It was the first time the Bananas have brought their zany take on the old game to Chicagoans, who embraced it like the late White Sox owner and showman Bill Veeck would have hoped.
The former summer college team from Savannah, Georgia has gone from playing for peanuts to packing professional baseball and football stadiums in a barnstorming tour across the country.
“Each inning the team that scores the most runs wins the point. But the last inning, every run is a point,” an older man explained to a much younger one in the bleachers. “And if a fan catches a foul ball, it’s an out.”
By the end of the second inning Chicagoans had made three outs themselves. An outfielder caught a fly ball barehanded. The home plate umpire did a split. A marching band was making laps around the stands. Walks were replaced by “sprints” and the baseballs were also yellow.
Players took breaks to dance — including choreographed backup to a surprise Chance The Rapper concert. An inevitable Mike Ditka impersonator took the field.
“The music is very loud and there’s a lot of twerking,” said Bananas fan Katie Vasquez, who finds most Sox games she goes to somewhat boring. “I’m very entertained.”
Fans looking for seats to the Friday and Saturday night Banana games in Chicago against their traveling foils, The Firefighters, had to enter a lottery last winter. Less than half of hopefuls scored even the chance to buy tickets. The South Side crowd Friday topped the turnout across town at Wrigley Field for the contending Cubs’ matinee game.
The party started hours before first pitch with thousands outside Sox Park for a “Pregame Party Plaza” with live music, a small nation of bouncy castles, meet-and-greets with Bananas and long lines to purchase merch. Sox mascot Southpaw, who famously wore jorts and a crop top to the Chicago Pride Parade in June, showed up Friday in a “I’m With The Banana” T-shirt.
Sox fan Ryan Rektorski and many others brought their young children.
“This is how big the crowd should be all the time,” Rektorski said. “I got lucky that this is my daughter’s first game.”
Amy Hermle came from home four blocks over in a banana costume she thought she’d wear just once for a group Mario Kart Halloween costume.
“Chicago really does it best, man,” Hermle said. “Sucks our sports team aren’t great.”
By the fourth inning, lemonade vendor Ron Raney said he made more than he would have during an entire Sox game. That team (44-78) lost Friday in Kansas City.
“Some say Banana Ball is bastardized baseball. No it’s not. It’s a roller derby. It’s the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball,” Raney said. “There’s more energy, a lot of kids. And kids are the future of sports.”
But for now it was still Buehrle’s night. And it was off to a rocky start after he surrendered a hit to the Firefighters’ Dakota McFadden, who said he was 12 or 13 years old when he watched Buehrle pitch a perfect game on television in his childhood room.
“My kid heart was smiling,” McFadden said. “The pitch he threw still moved like a wiffle ball.”
Buerhle received a standing ovation after he got the next batter to ground out to end the inning. Pierzynski said Buehrle, who shook him off most pitches, threw all fastballs “and one changeup.” The men wildly disagreed on the top speed.
“The roar I got from the crowd was insane,” said Buerhle, the subject of a new bronze statue in the outfield concourse. “I don’t know why everyone in Chicago loves me so much.”
McFadden had last played for an independent league team called the Birmingham Bloomfield Beavers. He was coaching travel baseball and dressing up as Santa Claus in the winter. The success of the Banana Ball has helped make baseball a career. He now regularly practices catching a baseball behind his back.
“It’s been an honor for me to impact people through the game in a positive way,” McFadden said. “Thirty one kids I coached signed this year to play college baseball and softball.”
The Firefighers’ Zachary Bridges, who played college ball at University of North Carolina Wilmington with White Sox prospect Brooks Baldwin, hit his first home run in a major league ballpark Friday.
“I can’t wait to tell him,” Bridges said. “I’m going to be in his wedding.”
Bananas fan Angela Abrand, from suburban Tinley Park, was not shy about her crushes on the players.
“Write that I love KJ Jackson,” Abrand said.
Joey Harbert, from Rogers Park, and many others said they had gotten to know the Bananas through TikTok.
“They did this amazing lip-sync of Lizzy McAlpine’s song ‘Ceilings,’” Harbert said. “I really couldn’t tell you the last time I went to a baseball game.”
The young Grady Gribac wore the Bananas jersey he got for his birthday.
“I’m hoping to get something signed,” Gribac said.
Street vendors outside the ballpark swapped out their usual White Sox merch for knockoff Bananas gear — except for one still slinging “Chicago Pope” shirts.
Babies “raced” on the field between an inning and a Banana mascot got an adult fan to put on an oversized diaper. The crowd ate it up.
The Bananas scored their runs largely on errors from “trick plays” gone awry by The Firefighters, who have room to improve at behind-the-back and backflip catches. The game was over in under two hours — per Banana Ball rules.
“I wouldn’t say this reminded me of the World Series,” Pierzynski said. “But I mean, the crowd was into every pitch.”
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