Okay, first and foremost—this article is not a dig at our beloved Milwaukee Brewers. They are here to stay, and this city will always have their back.
If you’re a sports fan with a pulse (or a TikTok account), you’ve probably seen clips of the Savannah Bananas—and if not, it’s about time you did. Think the Harlem Globetrotters meets baseball. Now toss in a marching band, viral dances, enough chaos to make the late Bob Uecker proud, and much more.
The Bananas aren’t just playing baseball—they have completed reinvented the sport.
The Savannah Bananas began in 2016 as a collegiate summer league team in the Coastal Plain League (CPL), where they won three Petitt Cup championships. By 2022, they had outgrown the traditional format and left the league. The Bananas transitioned to playing exclusively “Banana Ball,” and the rest is history.
In just a few years, the Savannah Bananas have become one of the hottest tickets in sports, completely redefining what the baseball experience can look and feel like. It’s fast, it’s weird, and it’s a whole lot of fun—also, they don’t need new baseball bats to make the game more enjoyable. They’ve got players dancing, umpires splitting, and fans catching foul balls for outs (I LOVE the Banana Ball Rules). They have trimmed the fat, cranked up the energy x10, and somehow made baseball feel alive again… and they’re constantly improving!
The first time I saw a Savannah Bananas clip, I didn’t think of baseball. I also didn’t immediately think of the Harlem Globetrotters. As an avid movie nerd, I instantly thought of the 1998 comedy classic BASEketball—directed by David Zucker, a Milwaukee native and the mastermind behind Airplane!, The Naked Gun, and more.
BASEketball is a movie about two slackers who accidentally invent a new sport that combines baseball, basketball, and endless Yo Momma jokes. They form the Milwaukee Beers—a team that plays in jorts, trash talks, and drinks too much during games—in other words: a Milwaukee local. Oh, and it stars the South Park guys, Trey Parker and Matt Stone—with appearances from Bob Costas, Reggie Jackson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Dale Earnhardt, and more legends.
Fun fact: David Zucker invented BASEketball years before the movie as a game that everyone could play and held games in his driveway. It became so popular a small league was created. By the fifth season championship game, the event was so big that the city shut down the street and two local Los Angeles TV stations came to report on it (according to Consport). Original players from Zucker’s league appear in the movie.
So yeah, maybe it started as a joke. But Wisconsin’s been ready for this kind of team for decades. Major League was originally set in Milwaukee and had the same chaotic energy as Banana Ball—wild plays, misfits, and fans who just want to have some rowdy fun. And when the Bananas came to Franklin Field in 2023, the place sold out twice. The crowd showed up loud, weird, and all-in.
So why not bring the Beers to Banana Ball? Here’s why it makes perfect sense—for Wisconsin, for Banana Ball, and for everyone who thinks baseball should be fun again (no offense).
3. The concessions would go so hard
One of the best things about Banana Ball is that it isn’t chained to MLB rules—or the crazy MLB prices. A Wisconsin-based team could go off with concessions: fried cheese curds, cream puffs, butter burgers, endless Summer Shandy, bratwursts, and real Old Fashioneds.
You could build the entire menu out of Wisconsin State Fair staples and no one would complain!
2021
And let’s not ignore the latest MLB trend: the new ball park souvenir cups that every team’s rolling out like it’s a competition. There’s a Rangers bat mug. A Mariners trident. The Milwaukee Beers souvenir cup should just be a huge beer stein. Make it heavy, make it ridiculous, probably refillable…maybe not. Just like it should be.
2. The league needs a northern based team, and who better than Wisconsin?
Right now, all of the Banana Ball teams are based in the South; around Alabama and Florida. As a fellow southern boy, that’s cool. But if you want real nationwide rep, you gotta head north. Wisconsin brings cold weather, diehard tailgate culture, and a fan base that shows up no matter what’s falling from the sky. Rain, snow, sleet—Lambeau Field, Fiserv Forum, Camp Randall, anywhere—Wisconsinites live for their sports teams.
And it’s not just the fans—we’ve got real baseball history, too. The first women’s professional baseball league, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), had teams here, like the Milwaukee Chicks and the Racine Belles. The Belles won the league’s first championship, and they’re a team depicted in the film A League of Their Own (1992). Wisconsin doesn’t just love baseball, we helped shape the entire sport.
Racine Belles, 1943
1. We already have the team name. It’s the Beers. Come on.
We’re not reinventing the wheel here. The branding’s already there. The Milwaukee Beers from BASEketball are cult legends. The name is hilarious, regionally perfect, and easy to remember. The merch? Retro logos, foam beer mugs, jorts, a keg mascot—done.
The name does half the work. And the fans will do the rest. Let’s be honest: no other team in the league has a built-in comedy fanbase like this. Hell, I’m sure you could even get the South Park guys on board, considering the work they’re doing reviving Casa Bonita.
So let’s stop messing around and make it happen. Give Wisconsin a Banana Ball team. Call them the Beers. And let the chaos begin!
Want more Milwaukee Record? Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and/or support us on Patreon.
RELATED ARTICLES
• Revisiting the brief, brilliant history of the Milwaukee Chicks baseball team
• Savannah Bananas to bring “Banana Ball” high jinks to Franklin Field next September