Gillum having a ball with unique baseball squad

Tyler Gillum, a graduate at Latta High school is right in the thick if it with banana Ball mania. He is indeed among the best in his field.

Gillum managed the Savannah Bananas collegiate baseball team, winning back-to-back Petit cups two times and also twice named Coastal Plain league Coach of the year in 2018.

In 2005, he studied at Latta and played for four state championship teams, one team that had a perfect score of 33-0, and later two years playing at Seminole State Junior College. He concluded his professional playing life at eastern central university.

This is the case with the Savannah Banana which has transformed into Banana Ball and does not play the PCL anymore. However, instead of playing in one town for sell out audiences, they go on tour throughout the United States, performing before full crowds everywhere!

What exactly is Banana Ball?

Gillum said, “ESPN calls us the greatest show in sports”. “The Banana Ball is an excellent form of baseball that involves entertainment”, added Gillum. “We put our own spin on baseball”, he concluded in an interview which appeared in The Ada News on March 15

Gillum had been in town weeks back and addressed a bunch of Ada High School athletes.

Their dance parties and antics like the tallest player in baseball are well noted and documented in the history of this league. Jesse Cole is always seen donning a Yellow Tuxedo for their owner. Their senior citizens dance team is known as the Banana Nanas, and they are often led by a dancing umpire who performs some sensual movements while calling strikes.

Fans love their games because of how intense and exciting they are from pitch one to the very end. Everywhere you hear of them, even their fans go crazy about them .

The game of Banana Ball could also be said to be wildly entertaining but also contains serious and genuine baseball.

Gillum recalls a conversation with about five years ago that really transformed Savannah Bananas to Banana Ball.

He stated, “we would have liked to know what we could do with baseball during the off-season instead of just waiting for the summers.” The feeling was there that we should “be the greatest show on turf,” but we also wanted to be a really good team on the playing field. We made baseball entertaining, so that it remained thrilling for its players and its audience throughout the whole game. To date, we have continued to grow it.”

In the past, folks would most of the time abandon during the final hours of a game. Today, many fans show up earlier than others and stay back even long after the game has ended.

“We welcome our fans and we bid adieu to our fans”. Thank you all for coming, you are welcomed to the game. We sign autographs. I also think that when people come around and see it, they notice decent baseball, yet entertain them all in the full nine innings.

People already sold out the tickets for the Savannah bananas.

Ever since 2016, we have sold out all the games held in Savannah and nobody has purchased the Will Call ticket. It’s crazy. He said they have been asking for it for sometime.

Fans confused these games with Banana Ball which is far more entertaining, thus contributing to part of the decision to stop playing as a collegiate team during the summer.

Gillum said: “April of this year we increased our follower base from 500 thousand followers on Twitter (now X), and within one month, reached over three million fans of Banana Ball and had no choice but to ‘go full throttle’”. We did not also want to confuse our fans. However, in the summer of 2022, we were actually competing in a summer collegiate league with real baseball and fans expected Banana Ball! Fans believed it was going to be staged and thus bought out all our games at away. However, it was just summer ball. We were forced to tell them that it was baseball not, Banana Ball. We were confusing fans.”

The one-year old, Banana Ball World Tour, is definitely a huge, huge success already.

We were in 33 cities in 20 states playing 87 games and we sold out each game. YouTube had nearly seven million viewers watching our championship games. According to Gillum, “Last year we had half a million fans watch us live and this year we’re going to double it.”

One million fans from across the United States will have a chance to watch live Banana Ball in 2024. Nevertheless, more than two million fans have signed up on their “Banana Ball ticket” waiting list.

In 2024, Banana Ball visits six Major League stadiums as well as multiple minor league facilities. The first pit-halt of MLB will take place on March 9 in Houston’s Minute Maid Park.

The day June 8th is marked in Gillum’s diary as he is red sox fan. This is when he and the Bananas will pay their visit to the famous Fenway park in Boston.

Last year alone, I can say that I cried about fifteen times during my stay there. Coach Collins was in one of those games, who has been my hero. This was quite weird, to tell you the truth.

Even tough Collins was a baseball purist; he liked it so much as well.

Gillum said, “It was so awesome. As he told me that he was proud of me and thought what we are doing is quite cool.”

Some of these men who are real baseball guys just as me are reluctant before coming to a game. We do something a little bit differently … except their view that this shows very nice baseball which is not rehearsed on a sport side. He added, “It is competitive and we intend to leave it that way.” Nevertheless, we are going to inject some entertainment into this and celebrate. We’re going to have fun. Now we are going to do some dances. It will also be really good ball.

Gillum has always been under a national spotlight ever since the development of the Banana ball. His fame will certainly increase in the coming months and years, yet he remains an original Latta Panther in his heart. Furthermore, he is more than eager to return the show to OKC.

To him, he is the same small town kid from ADa Okla. Nothing has change about them at all .“66 in the back pocket.” He represents Gillum 66 ranch where he come from. Special about coming back to Oklahoma. We must have had a large chunk of Ada there those two nights. I am glad there were some grown up guys with whom I went on playing baseball. It was fun.”

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Banana Ball

2024 tour schedule

Feb. 8-10: George M. Steinbrenner Field, Tampa Bay, Florida

Feb. 15-17: Peoria, Arizona; Peoria Sports Complex

March 1-3: Jacksonville, Florida; 121 Financial Ballpark

March 9: Houston, Texas; Minute Maid Park

March 14-16: Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

March 22-24: Gwinnett County, Georgia; Coolray Field

April 12-14: Durham, NC; Durham Bulls Athletic Park

April 20-21: Albuquerque, New Mexico, Rio Grande Credit Union Field at Isotopes Park

April 25-27: Mesa, Arizona; Sloan Park

May 3-5: Fresno, California; Chukchansi Park

May 9-11: Sacramento, California; Sutter Health Park

May 16-18: The location is Oklahoma City in Oklahoma and Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark.

May 24-26: Columbus, Ohio; Huntington Park

June 8: Boston, Massachusetts; Fenway Park

June 13-15: Nashville, Tennessee; First Horizon Park

June 27-29: Indianapolis, Indiana; Victory Field

July 5-7: Buffalo, New York; Sahlen Field

July 13: Washington, D.C.; Nationals Park

Aug. 1-3: Louisville, Kentucky; Louisville Slugger Field

Aug. 10: Cleveland, Ohio; Progressive Field

Aug. 16-18: Norfolk, Virginia; Harbor Park Stadium

Aug. 30-31: Salta Lake city in Utah; smith ballpark.

Sept. 6-8: Des Moines, Iowa; Principal Park

Sept. 21: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Citizens Bank Park

Oct. 12: Miami, Florida; LoanDepot Park

Oct. 14-18: Bananaland at Sea