Feature Story: "The Young Professor's Class Syllabus Requirements: Baseball, Entertainment, and Fun."

An Interview with Matt Graifer, the Chief Potassium Enthusiast for the Savanna Bananas, and the man known as the “Young Professor.”

Apr 22, 2023

When kids start playing sports, the most important thing, above all else, is that they have fun.

As they weakly swing their bat at the tee or trip and fall while chasing the soccer ball, winning is an afterthought.

The thing they are usually most concerned about is whether it will be a Gatorade or a juice box that they’ll get pair with the bag of goldfish after the game.

Unfortunately, as they grow, the stakes get more serious. Competitive traveling teams. Sports specialization. Overbearing coaches. Intense parents. And the list goes on and on.

It’s a lot of unnecessary pressure on kids.

And all of these factors end up forcing the fun from those very first sports days of youth out of the picture.

However, there is a team tucked away into a picturesque southern city and named after the largest herbaceous flowering plant in the world that never forgets about having fun.

Around a decade ago, when Matt Graifer was working as an exercise and sports science professor, he earned a nickname that made perfect sense for a 25-year-old teaching at a college: the Young Professor.

Alas, he never got the chance to become an old professor as the program he taught in was eliminated at that college. He found a job in sales after his teaching job was cut but hated it.

Graifer then started to dabble as a bar trivia host and did that for a few years. During that time, trivia players commonly approached him to ask if he was a sports announcer due to his professional-sounding voice on the mic.

After he heard the question enough times, he thought, “Okay, so maybe these people are right and I should pursue this.” Graifer wrote down the goal on a piece of paper: he was going to become a voiceover actor or announcer.

Graifer was teaching again when an opportunity knocked in 2018. A professional wrestling school put up an ad seeking a ring announcer. The job requirements listed in the ad weren’t many, but were memorable: “Available Saturdays and can’t suck.”

Graifer had always been a pro wrestling fan (the Undertaker being his favorite wrestler) so he had the necessary knowledge (check). He was also available on Saturdays and had event experience so he figured he wouldn’t suck (check).

He got the gig and was officially started on his sports journey.

He also had the nickname from his college teaching days that was a fantastic built-in moniker for a wrestling ring announcer.

That same year he also reached out to the Jacksonville Sharks, an arena football team, to see if they needed an announcer. That inquiry also worked out for him as he was hired to be the in-game host for the team.

The Young Professor was now starting to gain momentum in the industry.

Sports fans always love a good underdog story - the scrappy, small player who succeeds with heart and hustle, the tiny school no one has heard of making a Cinderella run during March Madness, or the aging star who turns back the clock for one last shot at glory.

The underdog also comes to mind as a recurring theme in this story, with Graifer finding success with hard work and a hustler’s mentality. Time and time again he has bet on himself and progressed forward.

While he was busy working in pro wrestling and arena football, he also formed a relationship with the Daytona Tortugas, the Single-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. Eventually he even took students there on field trips to visit the Tortugas’ ballpark.

Graifer had always been a baseball fan thanks to his grandpa, who was a New York Mets fan, and like his grandpa, he began following the team from Queens. He started to watch baseball more seriously in his late teens and was a big David Wright fan, so baseball was a natural path for him to pursue.

Daytona’s General Manager had seen what he was doing in arena football and pro wrestling and asked him in 2019 if he would be interested in being the Tortugas on-field host for the 2020 season. Graifer jumped at the opportunity.

One day in March 2020, he was leaving work to head to the Tortugas’ stadium to take promotional photos and work on a press release to announce that he would be the on-field host.

You can probably guess what happened next: the COVID-19 pandemic shut the world down.

He lost 80 bookings for the rest of that year and thought he had forever lost the opportunity to work with the Tortugas.

In 2020, Major League Baseball was revamping the minor league system to streamline and consolidate minor league affiliations. Supposedly the Tortugas were on the verge of being eliminated, so Graifer said they wanted to pull out all the stops to show that they deserved to still be a franchise.

The Tortugas also had a great history that many fans did not know about. The team’s stadium was known as City Island Ball Park when it opened in Daytona Beach, Florida in 1914. It still stands over 100 years later and now has the distinction of being the oldest in minor league baseball.

The ballpark also played a vital role in one of baseball’s most historic moments.

In 1946, Jackie Robinson signed to play with the Triple-A Montreal Royals, who held a joint spring training in Florida with the Brooklyn Dodgers. After two other cities refused to allow the Royals (and Robinson) to play a spring training game at their stadium, Daytona Beach allowed the game to occur, and it was played on March 17, 1946. Robinson then went on to break the Major League Baseball color barrier the next season with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

One could argue this may have never happened if Daytona had not allowed the game to proceed at City Island Ball Park. Today, a statue of Jackie Robinson sits in front of the stadium, now known as Jackie Robinson Ballpark.

Fortunately, for Graifer, baseball fans, and historians, the Tortugas survived the dual threat of the pandemic and MLB’s re-structuring to remain a team in 2021. Graifer then fulfilled his on-field announcer role for the team for both the 2021 and 2022 seasons.

If you’re still trying to figure out what the largest herbaceous flowering plant in the world is, it’s the banana, and if you’re still trying to figure out the picturesque southern city described, it’s Savannah, Georgia.

And the Savannah Bananas began play in 2016 as a member of west division of the Coastal Plain League (CPL).

The CPL is similar to the Cape Cod League, where college players play throughout the summer to gain experience and showcase their skills. CPL alumni to make the majors include Justin Verlander, Ryan Zimmerman, Mark Reynolds, and Chris Bassitt.

The Bananas had immediate success in their inaugural season, prevailing over the Peninsula Pilots in the league championship series, the Pettit Cup. They again won the Pettit Cup in 2021 and 2022 and had success off the field - selling out every home game at Grayson Stadium since that first season.

However, the team became best known for their quirky version of America’s Pastime, known as “Banana Ball.”

Graifer had heard about the Bananas and quickly realized the team was the absolute best at in-game entertainment.

He started to study the Bananas harder than a monkey would to see what games they played on-field between innings and what kind of wacky things they did to entertain their fans.

Then opportunity popped up in July 2021, when the Bananas owner Jesse Cole invited Graifer and his family to attend a game. Fortuitously, the team’s regular PA announcer was out for that game so Graifer was given to get the chance to work at the game as a “ring announcer” - the same as his wrestling job - by bringing hype, energy, and fun, but this time, bringing it to a baseball game. This was a huge deal and a great opportunity for him.

Interest in the Bananas was growing around this time, and they were selling out every home game, which means attendance was around 4,000 people. Graifer was used to performing in front of smaller crowds so was a bit nervous, but as any good showman would do, he prepared, and the game went well. It was also “a ton of fun.”

After working with the Bananas once, he wanted to be a part of it, but he didn’t know if it would ever happen again.

Then in October 2021, the team announced they were going on an eight-city tour in the summer of 2022.

Graifer said:

“The same little voice in my head that told me to reach out to pro wrestling told me to reach out to the Bananas. I hired a violin player and shot a promo video on a green screen, showing me in every city on the tour and what I could do if I was a part of the tour. I just wanted to be a part of it and learn. I realized entertainment was a legitimate pursuit and working with the Bananas was the ultimate goal.”

He sent the video proposal in and heard back from the Bananas, who told him we already have a host, but he impressed them enough that they wanted to meet with him. Ultimately, the result of the meeting was that Graifer was invited to tour with the Bananas.

His responsibility was to use that wrestling announcer energy and vocal power to get fans ready to run through a wall before the game and stay pumped during it.

The tour brought Bananaball, or as the Bananas’ website puts it, “the world famous baseball circus” to the masses, as it was featured in an ESPN series that further elevated the team to national attention.

And the Young Professor was along for the magical ride. He can be seen in the 0:51 second mark of the trailer for the series.

Graifer said to produce the series an ESPN crew of five-to-six camera operators followed them while capturing the footage for the show.

Since the release of the series, the team’s popularity has continued to skyrocket and they’ve been featured in numerous national and local news stories, both in print and on television.

I asked Graifer what he was most surprised about while on tour. He remarked that he wasn’t necessarily surprised because he could tell they were on the verge of something big, but what did blow him away was how excited and happy people were during the games.

“The Bananas were just a college-level, summer league wooden-bat team when they started. They were a small team in Savannah, Georgia and now are a worldwide phenomenon. MLB players are suiting up with them on a weekly basis and people are coming from all over the world to watch.”

So what makes the Bananas games so unique? Well, they play baseball by a modified set of rules that is aimed at entertainment.

The official rules are listed below and taken from the team’s official website, which provides further details on each of them.

Rule 1: Win the Inning, Get the Point
Rule 2: Two Hour Time Limit
Rule 3: No Stepping Out
Rule 4: No Bunting
Rule 5: Batters Can Steal First
Rule 6: No Walks Allowed
Rule 7: No Mound Visits Allowed
Rule 8: If A Fan Catches A Foul Ball, It’s An Out (this one is my favorite)
Rule 9: Showdown Tiebreaker

The team’s owner, Jesse Cole, previously mentioned in the story, wears a full yellow suit and a yellow top hat to every game.

They are also extravagant player entrances, people on stilts, bats on fire, and dancing. A lot of dancing. Let’s just say this ish is Bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

I can try to describe it, but it’s easier to see it with your own eyes.

Here are the top 10 moments from last season:

And if you want to watch more Bananas baseball, Graifer informed me the team’s full games are broadcast for free on YouTube.

Here’s a link from a recent game this season:

Obviously this crazy brand of baseball is a big hit with fans, but as someone who sees what goes on behind the scenes, Graifer has a vantage point the common fan does not. I was curious to know why he thinks the Bananas are so successful.

He said a lot of people think what they do is fake, but it is indeed 100% genuine. The entertainment is planned out, but the games are in fact real. Everything that occurs within the white lines is real.

And the team’s employees are as equally committed as the players. Graifer said that everyone who works for the Bananas is just a regular person who truly and genuinely appreciates the team’s success. Everyone buys into the vision that the top priority is entertaining people and having fun. It works because fans really connect with that philosophy.

He also said that the rapid-fire pace of the game caters to the modern era of life as people’s attention spans have never been shor- hey there’s another Relief Pickle article that just popped up in my feed and I want to read it- I mean never been shorter.

Graifer said that the games keep both kids and adults engaged, so much so that during the game you won’t see many people on their phones, but instead laser focused on the game happening in front of them.

“That is rare today, but there wasn’t anything that tapped into that. I say we are like TikTok but in real life. With bright colors and baseball.”

I also asked him what advice would he give to a fan attending their first Bananas game?

Be ready to have fun and keep your head on a swivel. If you don’t pay attention, you’ll miss something. Don't bring a negative attitude and you’ll have so much fun - people always say it’s the most fun they have had in a long time.

Graifer said when he brought his own family to that first game in July 2021, he had never seen his own children have that much fun at an event before.

Even with the rise of the Bananas and his own personal success, Graifer still keeps that same hustler’s mentality as when he was getting into the sports entertainment industry.

The day I talked to him, he was driving from his home in Florida to Savannah, a 3-hour round drive, for that night’s Bananas game. And afterwards he was driving back home, a trip that would get him home around 1:00 am.

He is also still teaching today - world history this time - and when I interviewed him he had just finished a lesson on the rise of Axis powers in early World War II.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t remember my history teacher moonlighting as a successful announcer and entertainer for one of the hottest teams in the world.

Remember earlier in the story, when Graifer wrote down on a piece of paper that someday he was going to become a successful voiceover actor or announcer?

Well, he still has it, and instead of keeping the teacher’s proverbial apple on his desk, today this professor keeps that scrap of paper sitting behind a glass frame.