Former Earlham Quaker plays for audience of 15,000 in tryout for Savannah Bananas

INDIANAPOLIS — An umpire busting a dance move before calling a strike.

The world's tallest baseball player at 10 feet, 9 inches pitching a strikeout.

Trick plays being a part of the stat line.

And a former Earlham College baseball player entertaining thousands of fans.

That's the name of the game for "Banana Ball" in Bananaland, as the Savannah Bananas, an exhibition baseball team sometimes compared to basketball's Harlem Globetrotters, continued its 2024 world tour with a three-night stint in Indianapolis from June 27 to 29.

Max Fries, a former Earlham Quaker and a Cincinnati native, returned close to home Thursday night at Victory Field, the home of the Indianapolis Indians, after being recently signed by the Bananas organization.

Fries is the 10th Quaker all time to play baseball in a professional capacity, the first since Walter Talcott signed with the Lexington Legends in 2020, according to former coach Steve Sakosits.

Fries plays for The Visitors, the newly created developmental team for players trying out to make one of the three main teams next year: the Bananas, the Party Animals or the Firefighters.

'A dream come true'

Although he played three games for The Visitors already against The Party Animals in Savannah a couple of weeks ago, Fries said he was fortunate enough to play Thursday's opener in front of his parents, grandparents, aunt and girlfriend.

"Today was straight out of a movie," he said. "All the glory to God for getting me here. It's been a journey to get here and if you told me a year and a half or two years ago that I'll be playing in front of 15,000 people against the Savannah Bananas, I would have thought it was a dream and it really has been a dream come true. Coming out here tonight and playing the game I love in front of 15,000 people, it's just nothing short of a miracle, so I'm really blessed for it."

Fries said he's always kept up with the Bananas through social media, but it was his mom who has always loved the team, going as far as getting him a unicycle to set him apart from other players.

"My mom was like, 'You've got the baseball ability. You're a great player. You work your butt off ... but you need something else.' I come home one day and there's a unicycle in the living room and says I'm going to ride a unicycle."

To play for the organization, two of the questions on the prospective players application include special talents and what they would do to be remembered by and talked about by the fans.

Fries was noticed by his social media following: 150,000 followers on TikTok and nearly 50,000 on Instagram, leading to Berry Aldridge, one of the Bananas' recruiters, to reach out to him.

"That set an opportunity here at the end of May to come down to Savannah and play on The Visitors which is a developmental team for the Bananas to hopefully get on one of the other teams next year," he said. "This is our last weekend playing, but we had a blast. It's been the best month of my life."

In the game, Fries' team won 3-2, finishing with a stat line of 1-for-2 with a ball four sprint and a single.

Who are the Savannah Bananas?

The Savannah Bananas were formed in Savannah, Georgia, in 2016 by Jesse and Emily Cole as a collegiate summer team following the departure of the city's previous team, the Savannah Sand Gnats.

The Bananas competed in the Coastal Plain League up until 2022 before deciding to play "Banana Ball" full time, traveling the country to entertain fans.

In "Banana Ball," there are 11 rules:

• Win the inning, win the point. Whichever team scores the most runs in an inning wins a point. In the final inning, all runs count for a point. The team with the most points wins.
• Two-hour time limit. Unless there's a tie, no new innings start after an hour and 50 minutes, as long games can result in the loss of spectators.
• No stepping out. If a batter steps out of the batter's box, it's a strike.
• No bunting. As Bananas owner Jesse Cole puts it, "Bunting sucks." Bunters will be thrown out of the game.
• Batters can steal first base. If the pitcher throws a wild ball, hit or take off, no matter what the count is.
• No walks allowed. Now a sprint for batters, they can advance as many bases as they want while every defensive position player has to touch the ball before making an attempt to tag the batter out.
• No mound visits. This just delays the game. Fans don't need that.
• Fans can make an out. If a spectator catches a foul ball, it's an out.
• Showdown tiebreaker: If a game is tied after nine innings or two hours, it goes to a showdown between the pitcher and the hitter with only one fielder. The pitcher and fielder have to stop the hitter or the hitter has to score. If the batter is retired, the other team gets to hit. If the first showdown is a tie, the fielder is removed and its pitcher versus hitter. If the first two showdowns tie, it's pitcher and fielder versus hitter with the bases loaded, with all runs counting as a point.
• Banana Ball Challenge Rule: For the first time in sports history, any spectator can challenge a ruling on the field.
• Golden Batter Rule: A team can send up any batter to hit in any spot in the lineup. This guarantees the best possible match-up at the end of the game − when it matters most. A team's best hitter versus the other team's best pitcher.

All of the Savannah Bananas games are live-streamed on the team's official YouTube channel.

Max Fries a record-setter for Quakers

Fries played five seasons for Earlham's baseball team after his freshman year in 2020 was shortened because of the pandemic, resulting in him appearing in just five games.

This past season, Fries led the team with a .388 batting average and started in all 37 games.

He led the Quakers in several other hitting categories, including at-bats (139), runs (49), hits (54) runs batted in (51), home runs (9) and total bases (99).

Fries also made the Second Team All-HCAC and Third Team Region Eight ABCA/Rawlings NCAA All-Region for Division III.

His former coach, Sakosits, said Fries finished second in program history for career RBIs, runs scored and doubles and fifth for home runs in a season.

Coincidentally, Sakosits has a distant connection to the Bananas; when he was younger he played summer baseball in New Jersey with Steve Johnson, who eventually was a college roommate with Jesse Cole, the founder of the Bananas.

Sakosits said one part of the game Fries has had to work on, to which Fries admits, is his showmanship.

"He's one that puts his nose down and plays hard and lets his work show for him on that part," Sakosits said. "He was never one that you really had to worry about in kind of showing up the opponent or doing those kinds of things where you would think that that person who had this idea that they are going to have a social media presence would do those types of things, he wasn't like that at all. He was about how can we have success with his help."

"I think I would now," Fries said. "Playing baseball, you're always taught to keep your head down and act like you've been there before, but the Savannah Bananas, it's all about fun. It's all about the fans, and that's been something that I felt like it was natural for me. I've always been a very outgoing person and I've always thought of others before myself, so being able to play a sport I love with the fans first in mind has been a very, very easy match for me."

Faith has also played a large role in Fries' journey, as he started a brand, Audience of One, as a way to inspire other Christian athletes.

"If you look at both my bios, the first thing it says is follower of Christ because I'm nothing without him," he said. "I'm a follower of Christ first and baseball player second ... Whether I play, live, work or anything, it's for an audience of one. That's the motto I live by."

Evan Weaver is a news and sports reporter at The Palladium-Item. Contact him on X (@evan_weaver7) or email ateweaver@gannett.com.