Explaining Banana Ball: Unique baseball style comes to Las Vegas

Equipped with elaborate walk-up routines and a menagerie of gimmicks — including flaming baseballs, beanbag chairs, stilts, kilts and dance routines that regularly trend on social media — the Bananas World Tour arrives for a two-game showcase against their rival the Party Animals at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Las Vegas Ballpark.

Both games are already sold out.

The Bananas World Tour is part of the effort to expand the team’s creative reimagining of the sport of baseball. Dubbed Banana Ball, this version of America’s pastime has some interesting new rules.

Some of the adjustments are simple. There is a two-hour time limit. No innings can be started once the game time surpasses one hour and 50 minutes.

There’s no bunting because “bunting sucks,” according to the team’s website. Any batter who attempts a bunt is immediately ejected.

Additionally, batters cannot step out of the batter’s box once the at-bat begins. Anyone who does immediately earns another strike. Mound visits are also banned to keep the game moving at a quick pace.

Then, there are the more experimental rules. For example, the game is won by winning each inning. Instead of a cumulative score of runs throughout the game, a team gets one point for scoring the most runs in a single inning, which resets to zero for the next inning. However, in the final inning, every run counts.

There are also no walks. Instead, as soon as batters takes ball four, they immediately start sprinting around the bases. The defense must throw the ball to every single fielder outside of the pitcher and catcher before they can tag the runner out. Batters can also steal first on a wild pitch or passed ball.

Fans can also have an impact. Any foul ball caught by a fan counts as an out. Batters will also frequently run into the stands for high-fives after hitting home runs.

If the game is still tied after the final inning, it enters the Showdown Tiebreaker. The defense gets one pitcher, one catcher and one fielder against a batter who must score when he makes contact. The Showdown Tiebreaker has three rounds. In the second round, the fielder is removed. In the third, the bases are loaded.

Each run in the Showdown Tiebreaker counts. Any home runs hit over the outfield wall during the tiebreaker earn an automatic walkoff victory.

Outside of Banana Ball’s written rules, the team also provides extra on-field entertainment. There are skits, including the third-inning moment when the pitcher, catcher, middle infielders and center fielder break into dance during the middle of the at-bat. The team also has a dancing umpire who does his routine in the fourth inning.

MLB players such as former Cy Young Award winner Jake Peavy and fellow World Series champions Jonny Gomes, Jonathan Papelbon and Josh Reddick have made Bananas cameos.

The team is managed by former MLB outfielder Eric Byrnes.

Contact reporter Andy Yamashita at ayamashita@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ANYamashita on Twitter.