So... it's a dreary February night, I'm not quite ready for bed, but it's 9:00 where I'm at so things are winding down. I tune in my TV. It's an old 13" color cathode-ray Walmart model that I bought for college in 2006, connected to a $20 entry-level Roku through a series of adapters, cables and RF converters that only Gen Xers and ham radio enthusiasts could truly appreciate. Usually I'm watching one of the free weather channels, or the loop of Bob Ross episodes. But tonight... I decide to look for some sports to watch. And on my Youtube recommendations comes across... the Savannah Bananas.
Now, I've heard of the Savannah Bananas, the team that has revolutionized baseball as sports entertainment. They regularly play to sold-out crowds playing a unique, time-constrained version of baseball they call "Banana Ball" in a touring format resembling the decades-long Harlem Globetrotters' basketball tour against their hapless foes, the Washington Generals. But I'd never watched one of their games until now. So... having nothing to do on a Thursday... I did.
First, the good part: unlike the Globetrotters, the Bananas' games are not fixed for them to win all the times. They're legitimate contests, and the Bananas' regular opponents, the Party Animals—dressed in pink like something out of a 1980s teen sitcom or dance music video—are as likely to defeat the Bananas as the other way around (in fact, the announcer noted the Animals had been on a comfortable winning streak).
That's about where the enjoyable part ended for me.
The fact is, for me, Banana Ball is downright PAINFUL to watch. For one, a DJ is blaring party music constantly throughout play, making it difficult to focus on the game at hand. As someone on the autism spectrum, had I been at a Bananas game, I would have gone into a meltdown—and likely gotten physically ill. And while the goofy paraphernalia and costume enhancers were amusing, the need to interrupt the innings with choreographed dance sequences was not. I watched in horror as one of the teams (can't remember which) ran a promotion using The Lonely Island's vulgar Saturday Night Live sketch "D--- in a Box..." uncensored. Indeed, to my lack of surprise, there were quite a few children in the stands watching this, and though I don't fancy myself a Karen, to say that such a sketch was in poor taste for a family audience is an understatement. A social media follower of mine replied that he had witnessed an umpire twerking. Thankfully I missed that.
I liked the premise of the Savannah Bananas: take a staid, traditional game like baseball, and make it fun for a family audience. But this... this... was TRASH. A kind of trash that fits in with the kind of Drag Queen Story Hours and subversive "entertainment" that has taken root in America's culture this decade. Having seen this on a TV set, there is no way in Hades I would pay a ticket to see this flaming pile of garbage passing itself off as America's pastime.
I turned the TV off after that and went to bed.
