Banana Ball makes baseball make fun again
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Lucy Toth, left, and her brother Alex Toth stand with their gloves and Party Animals jerseys while at a Banana Ball game in June played at American Family Field, the home of the Milwaukee Brewers major league team. (Photo courtesy 8-18 Media director Marnie Foucault)
Banana Ball rules are a little bit different than regular baseball rules. In Banana Ball, if you step out of the batter's box, you're out. There's no bunting, either. And instead of getting points for every run, a team get points from whoever has the most runs at the end of each inning.
They also count trick plays, but not as points. A trick play is like if you catch a pop fly behind your back, or if you catch a grounder with your arm and mitt behind your legs instead of in front.
Another one of the rules is that there are no walks. If the pitcher throws four balls, the batter can run as far as he wants and can keep running until every player in the field has touched the ball. We saw that happen a couple times, but every time that happened, the runner only got to first base.
When we went to a Banana Ball game in June, my family and I saw the Loco Beach Coconuts play the Party Animals. We saw the game at the Brewers stadium in Wisconsin, American Family Field.
A guy on the Coconuts team was playing right center, and a ball got hit out there, but he jumped up and caught it and did a backflip the second after he caught the ball. There were a lot of goofy games with names like "Shark-Nado" and "Wig Snatch."
There was also a first-date game where two couples on their first date had to run to first base from home plate (only the girls) to get to their boyfriends, then the girls got on their boyfriends' backs and had to piggyback from first base to second base, each had to chug a soda, run from second base to third together, then the boys had to carry the girls to home plate, and that was my favorite part because both couples fell at least once.
There was a really cool hip-hop dancer with the Party Animals named Brandon Bam.
The game "Shark-nado" was pretty funny, too. It was kinda like musical chairs. Four people were playing, and they had to spin with their head on a baseball bat while the song "Baby Shark" was playing, but they had to run to one of the three floaties when the music stopped. If you didn't get in one of the floaties, you were out.
Then there was the game "Wig Snatch." Eight people played, and the rules were that you needed to grab someone else's wig off of their head, and if someone got your wig, you were out. The wig colors were blue, yellow, red, pink, green, orange and purple. Orange ended up winning.
There was a guy on the Coconuts team who was using a jump rope, bouncing up and down over it while sitting. There was another guy on that team who rode a surfboard that was being carried by his other teammates, and there was Mario Kart music playing, and he pretended to be driving the surfboard, like he was in Mario Kart. It was very funny.
My brother and I each got a Party Animals jersey before the game, and after the game, we each got a mini Loco Beach Coconuts bat. The Banana Ball game was really cool to watch, and I really hope I get to go to another one.
Lucy Toth is 13 years old, has one dog, two cats and three fish. She likes to play baseball, ride horses and play DND, a role-playing game.