sa国际传媒官网网页入口

Fans gathered at Isotopes Park this weekend for two days of a different kind of ball game: Banana Ball.

The Banana Ball moniker comes from the Savannah Bananas, the immensely popular baseball team that turns the traditional game on its head, offering unique rules, music and dancing throughout and no shortage of fan interaction.

The Party Animals and Firefighters, teams in the Banana Ball universe, played Saturday night and Sunday afternoon in sa国际传媒官网网页入口 in front of about 27,000 fans. The Firefighters won both games.

The rules of Banana Ball include things like no innings may begin after the two-hour mark, each inning is worth a point, no bunting, and if a fan catches a ball, it鈥檚 an out.

This year, there are six teams in Banana Ball and together they鈥檒l play more than 180 games in ballparks across the country. Most of them sell out.

Drew Gillespie, an sa国际传媒官网网页入口 native and a former University of New Mexico baseball player, is a pitcher for the Party Animals.

鈥淚t鈥檚 just a privilege to go out there in different communities around the country, and just spread joy,鈥� Gillespie said.

Gillespie and the Party Animals are making their third consecutive visit to Isotopes Park.

He said he took the team to his family鈥檚 house on Friday night for dinner, adding that he also got to hit up some of his favorite hometown restaurants, like Tomasita鈥檚 and El Pinto.

鈥淚 get to share the memory with friends and family all weekend long,鈥� he said.

Fans also got to create and share new memories. Here are five highlights from the action-packed weekend

Honoring firefighters

In both games, the teams brought an sa国际传媒官网网页入口 firefighter onto the field and introduced them to the crowd. Capt. Matthew Burnham from sa国际传媒官网网页入口 Fire and Rescue Station 9 was honored Saturday and Lt. Andres Montoya from sa国际传媒官网网页入口 Fire and Rescue Station 8 was honored Sunday.

Party Animals after dark

As the sun set behind the ballpark Saturday, fans鈥� wrists began to glow with light-up bracelets given out before the game in a promotion called 鈥淧arty Animals After Dark.鈥� The stadium lights turned off as various points for a bracelet show accompanied by music, such as Journey鈥檚 鈥淒on鈥檛 Stop Believing,鈥� and for the Party Animals鈥� Dustin Baber鈥檚 walk-up song, an Irish jig. Baber walked up to home plate, took a knee and chugged a root beer while fans鈥� bracelets lit the stands green. 

Game within the game

While the players entertained in various ways throughout the game, fans had several chances to entertain the crowd by participating in competitions between innings. For example, there was a relay race in which adult men wore sports bras filled with water balloons and had to chest bump their teammates. Also, little kids as wolves 鈥� a shoutout to Lobo Louie 鈥� raced across the field to their parents. It was an adorable way to show off some of New Mexico.

Freshest promotion

Party Animal host A.J. Kirsch and Firefighters host Kaz Egan hype up fans before the game. Egan did a crowd interaction in which fans had to guess a TV show鈥檚 theme song. I had the privilege of participating in this one, as Egan took my phone and filmed me while asking me to guess. Good thing I have sisters who grew up in the 1990s and I recognized the theme song for 鈥淔resh Prince of Bel-Air.鈥�

More crowd work

By far the best part of a Banana Ball game is the players鈥� interaction with the fans. Before and after the game, players met with fans on the plaza, signing everything from game balls to T-shirts and dancing to popular stadium songs like 鈥淲obble鈥� and 鈥淐upid Shuffle.鈥� Players also got to taste the concessions at Isotopes Park. Throughout the game, players went into the crowd to sing songs, shake hands (and their butts), and even bestow crowns to the Party Princesses of the game.

Elizabeth Secor is an arts fellow from the New Mexico Local News Fellowship program. You can reach her at esecor@abqjournal.com.