Laughing All the Way
Last week, the Savannah Bananas came to town. In case you’re not familiar, they’re the traveling baseball circus that has, since 2016, turned America’s favorite pastime upside down. For $25, patrons attending Banana games receive a ticket for two hours of dancing, singing, acrobatics-- and baseball—plus all the food and drink they care to consume. The Bananas’ organization has one goal: make baseball fun. Their home games have a waitlist 60,000 people long.
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Jesse Cole, the puppeteer of this genius enterprise, set out to do things a little differently than the big leagues typically do. In addition to superior fan engagement (including special rules like if a fan catches a foul ball it counts as an out), the Banana organization does things the “business world”-- much less the “baseball world” --can’t fathom. Things like securing zero sponsorship, calling every fan who purchases a piece of merchandise, charging zero sales tax, and shipping items for free. The added values go on and on and on.
Baseball is the show, but the sidebars and the free stuff are the magnets that draw people in. And laughter is what keeps them there and keeps them coming back.
Want a tribe or a team or a family to work? Give them something to laugh about together and they may never come undone. It’s the “Ancient Chinese Secret” often undervalued and impossible to overuse. “The family that prays together stays together,” so the saying goes. The one that laughs a lot does, too.
After the Boston Celtics dug a 0-3 hole in the 2023 NBA semi-finals series vs Miami, veteran Al Horford told his coach to ditch the film session and send the team to Topgolf for the day. Apparently, the Celtics spent the next 24 hours laughing at Horford’s swing. (And at and with each other for a litany of things.) The team stormed back in game four…again in game five… and again in heroic fashion at the buzzer in game six before ultimately conceding to the Heat in the final win-or-go-home game. Without question, Horford’s team excursion alleviated some pressure by zooming out for a bit beyond the bubble of their high-paying, high-platform job. But what it also did was what laughing always does. It melded them together in places well-meaning words and intentional gestures don’t have the ability to reach.
Sometimes all you need to do to come together is share a belly laugh.
In 2002, our women’s basketball team had a cast of characters who could all really play ball. We had players who could finish, players who could shoot, players who were good at getting fouled… players who could defend, players who could pass, and players who could rebound even though they weren’t very big. Off the court, they were equally as diverse. Some were loud, some were quiet. Some were studious, some were silly. But when they got together, they had one main thing in common. What they loved to do more than anything (even play basketball!) was laugh.
During a particularly daunting stretch of conference road trips, our staff made the executive decision to ditch the customary night-before-the game review of the scout. Instead of gathering to watch film of opposing players, we gathered to divide up into teams to play homemade games.
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On the eve of the Big 12 contest that could clinch us the conference title in Manhattan, Kansas, we played an epic game of “Concentration,” a popular TV game show from the 70’s where contestants match prizes represented by squares on a game board that reveals a picture puzzle underneath. That night, in the middle of nowhere in a janky Holiday Inn, the picture underneath the puzzle was a rapper known as Ludicrous and a racecar known for speed. Kansas State was good. Really, really good. They had talent at every spot and all kinds of size that we did not. But we had one thing, maybe, that they didn’t. We were really fast. Hence the message: Ludicrous Speed.
I remember everything about that game night. I remember the tiny hotel “suite” we were all crammed into like sardines. I can still hear Roz and Caton arguing about who said it first. I can still see Steph Luce jumping on the chair. I remember crying and repeatedly being unable to breathe as we all rolled around on top of each other gasping for breath while cackling like out-of-control hyenas as our players tried to solve that ridiculous puzzle to win the game.
We laugh about it still.
We laughed about it in time-outs the next day during the 40-minute contest. We laughed about it on the bus on the way home. We laughed about it in San Antonio when we were waiting in the locker room the day before the Final Four. We laughed about it at our 20-year reunion when came back together to celebrate our run.
And every time we do it’s like an invisible pinky swear.
Laughter does a lot of fabulous things for our well-being--it strengthens our immune system, reduces our stress, stimulates our mental acuity, and generally helps us look at ourselves and the world through a more colorful lens. It’s also a beautiful conduit for connection. We stick together better when we laugh along the way.
P.S. Continuous Laughter