Mark Lane: Tired of strike talk? Tortugas and Bananas are warming up
Are you a bummed-out baseball fan? Just as the last COVID spike was receding and a normal baseball season finally beckoned, Major League Baseball's plans congealed into a labor impasse. Spring training? Postponed. Season openers? Delayed. Prospects? Uncertain.
Yet there's still joy in Mudville.
Jackie Robinson Ballpark will open its gates April 8 for the Daytona Tortugas’ new season, and on March 18 and 19, the Savannah Bananas will be in town for exhibition games. At press time, tickets for the first Bananas game were sold out and the second was filling up fast.
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Here it should be said that the Bananas are not playing what you'd call normal baseball. There are more of the things that make a minor league game fun on a good night and fewer of the things that make baseball boring and drawn-out on a bad night.
Banana Ball decrees that games last no more than two hours. Yes, there's a clock. No bunts and no mound conferences, either. If somebody in the stands catches a foul ball, that's an out. The scoring system would take too much space here to describe. Just know it's different with an eye toward moving the proceedings along.
All pretty disorienting. Still, the Bananas, which ordinarily is affiliated with the college-player wood-bat Coastal Plain League, regularly fills all 4,000 seats at its home at Grayson Stadium. The approach may sound circusy but it has an strong fan following in Savannah, a town known for embracing eccentricity, and it's caught the attention of other minor league organizations.
Their games also feature a lot of between-play entertainment. And that's where the Young Professor comes in.
Who is the Young Professor?
The Young Professor, AKA Matt Graifer, was the Tortugas' on-field MC last season. He has joined the cast of the Bananas for their seven-city tour this spring but will be back at Jackie Robinson Ballpark in time for the season's start.
The professor, known for his caffeinated delivery and array of blaringly loud, sometimes holiday-themed suits ("over 50, I finally counted them," he says), says his style, honed by announcing for pro wrestling, is a natural match for the Bananas. "They occupy a unique position in sports," he says with uncharacteristic understatement.
His moniker — "more a description," he says — came about when he was casting about for a stage name. "Nobody remembers just Matt. I went with the Young Professor because that's what I was." He was in his 20s and a professor at the for-profit Keiser University in Daytona Beach. He now is closing in on his 36th birthday and his day job is teaching history and psychology at Matanzas High School, Palm Coast. So actually he's the Youngish History Teacher, which doesn't have the same ring.
"I try to bring the same energy — even the same wardrobe — to the classroom," he says. And really, the two jobs are not as far apart as they might seem. "Education is entertainment. All these kids have (computer) pads and it's tough to compete with YouTube and TikTok."
He sees his newest gig as "perhaps a culmination of all my experience in sports." Experience that included announcing for pro wrestling in South Daytona and arena football for the Jacksonville Sharks. And he hopes to bring back a little of the Banana-style showmanship from the tour to the Tortugas when he's back in town.
So the serious baseball season will begin late. And fans may be denied the back-to-normal baseball season they had been hoping for through all the disruption of the pandemic. But sit down and take notes because the Young Professor is lecturing: "For people down about Major League ball, no need to be sad. Turn your heads to Jackie Robinson Ballpark!"
A lesson I needed to hear.
Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is mark.lane@news-jrnl.com.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: No Opening Day or spring training? There's still Minor League Baseball
