I'm a Party Animal pooper: Shelve this Banana Ball stuff and bring back the Sand Gnats
This is a commentary by Tom Barton, former editorial page editor of the Savannah Morning News.
Savannah has had a long and storied history with professional minor league baseball.
Historic Grayson Stadium was built in 1926. It has survived hurricanes, inept city government landlords, segregation and erratic team owners. The stadium has been the friendly confines for at least 10 minor league clubs.
Many of baseball’s greats have graced its field, including Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle and Ted Giannoulas, the San Diego Chicken.
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I may be the only baseball fan in Savannah who misses its last minor league baseball franchise, the Class A Savannah Sand Gnats. They were replaced by Grayson’s current tenants, the Savannah Bananas, a national phenomenon for its focus on entertainment in a sport that many consider boring.
The Gnats played here from 1996 to 2015 when the team moved to Columbia, S.C.
The empty Grayson was filled by the Savannah Bananas, which played in the amateur Coastal Plain League. This team grafted on a second, more popular professional team. The amateur Bananas have been dissolved. The pro Bananas are the only team in town.
This bunch of Bananas, which competes against an in-house team, the Party Animals, as its foil, plays for laughs. They’re hitting it out of the park, with 3 million TikTok followers.
A 'soft spot' for the Sand Gnats
But for all the hype about slapstick Banana ball, I still have a soft spot for the Sand Gnats and minor league baseball. I think it goes back to when our family took a cross-country trip to Disneyland 40 years or so ago, and my dad made a side trip to Tucson, Arizona, to see a high-school buddy, Rich McKinney, from small-town Ohio, play for the minor-league Tucson Toros. I found it inspiring, watching a guy chasing his dream in a desert 2,000 miles from home. He played seven years in the majors.
That’s one of the reasons I miss minor league ball. It’s fun sitting in a minor league park and watching young kids, and some old ones, chasing dreams. They are like the kids in all of us. Some make it -- like former Gnat and two-time Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom. Many more do not. Such is life.
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Here are other reasons I miss the Gnats and minor league ball:
It was easy to find a ticket.
I saw a benchload of Atlanta Braves players here. Then there was a former New York Yankees coot Jim Bouton. Bouton, the irreverent author of “Ball Four,” won 11 games in Savannah and got called up to Atlanta in 1978. He was a creaky 39.
Finally, there was my favorite Brave, Rufino Linares, an outfielder from the Dominican Republic. He made it to the big club in 1981 as an ancient (for baseball) 30-year-old rookie. It was a tortuous journey from his poverty-stricken homeland to the bright lights of Turner Field. This dreamers could hit a fastball with a broomstick. To paraphrase Dale Murphy, “They throw 105 (mph). That’s OK. I swing 106.” So did Linares.
Rufino doggedly pursued his chosen road. As he once said, “You can’t get off the island by walking.”
He played for real, not for belly laughs. There was drama. It’s hard to root for the Three Stooges, day in day out. You know the ending: Moe pokes Curley in the eyes every time.
Maybe that’s enough for fans in the Twitterverse. But I prefer the backstories and tradition. Call me a Party Animal pooper.
I’m probably in the minority. But I miss the Sand Gnats.
Contact Barton via email at tommy@iamnotoldnews.com.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah Sand Gnats minor league baseball better than Banana Ball
