@yellowtuxjesse: There would be no Savannah Bananas and no Banana Ball, if it wasn’t for the Gastonia Grizzlies. I had just torn my shoulder and my baseball career was over. I didn’t know what I was going to do. But then I got offered the job as GM of the Gastonia Grizzlies. I was 23 years old, and the team only had 200 fans coming to their games and had lost over $100,000 the previous year. The only reason I got offered the job is because no one with experience and a track record wanted it. But I said, Yes! I was up for the challenge. It was harder than I could ever imagine to convince fans to come to our games. But it’s here where I learned how to make baseball fun and put the fans first. @emcole3 and @jaredaorton joined me and we grew so much together. We tried everything in Gastonia from Flatulence Fun Nights, to Pregnant Nights, to Midnight Madness games. This is where our players first danced and where we started to go all in on the fan experience. It was 8 years of learning and experimenting in Gastonia before Emily, Jared and I started our new team in Savannah. Our time in Gastonia gave us the courage to think bigger and start a team from scratch…and the rest is history.

YellowTuxJesse

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Friday 05 December 2025 19:03:33 GMT