Avon Pitcher Joins Savannah Bananas

By Carl Wiser

Staff Writer

At 6'8", Connor Harris is the tallest player in Banana Ball, not counting the guy who plays on stilts. Banana Ball is baseball with the bunts, mound visits and other boring parts replaced with choreographed dances, trick plays and fan participation (if a fan catches a foul ball, the batter is out). Last year they sold out two games at Fenway Park, two more at Yankee Stadium, and filled many other major league ballparks along with some football stadiums. There's a very long waitlist for tickets.

There are six teams in the league, including the Party Animals, the Texas Tailgaters and the Loco Beach Coconuts. Harris plays for the flagship team, the Savannah Bananas. This year, they'll return to Yankee Stadium and also play at Wrigley Field, Gillette Stadium, and the 102,000-capacity Kyle Field in Texas.

Harris with friends and family at the Iron Horse Sports Pub in Unionville for his Banana Ball draft watch party.

When Harris graduated from Avon High School in 2018, he was 6'5" with an 85 MPH fastball - not enough to get recruited. So he did a postgraduate year at Trinity-Pawling and got a lone scholarship offer to George Washington University in Washington, D.C. By his freshman year, his fastball was up to 92 and he earned a spot in the starting rotation. Unfortunately, this was the spring of 2020, and COVID kiboshed that season after 14 games. But he stuck with it, playing baseball year round in summer leagues (with the Greenville Flyboys and the Mystic Schooners) and at George Washington.

"I was in a good spot to get drafted after my senior year," Harris said when we met up at Luke's Donuts in Avon. "Then the first week of my senior year, I threw a pitch and felt it pop. I got an MRI, and it was completely torn."

Harris tore the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in his elbow and had Tommy John surgery to fix it. That summer (2023) he graduated from George Washington with a degree in communications. Because of COVID and the injury, he still had two years of college eligibility left, so he headed to Winthrop University in South Carolina to pursue his MBA and to pitch - they were the only Division I school willing to give a scholarship to a 23-year-old coming off surgery.

That impressive scar is from Tommy John surgery, which sidelined Harris for nearly a year. Photo by Carl Wiser

Connor pitched well at Winthrop, and midway through his second year, his coach told him he'd been scouted.

"I was so excited," Harris says. "Finally, my dreams coming true. I asked, 'What's the team?'

'The Savannah Bananas.'

'That's not an MLB team!' I was not hell-bent on the Bananas. I thought it would be giving up on my dream to play in the MLB. So I told him, 'I don't know if I'm interested.' He told me I owe it to them and to myself to at least pursue the opportunity."

Harris went to Savannah to play with their developmental team, the Visitors. "I had an awesome time in Savannah and started posting on social media," he said. "I went headfirst, full in."

The moment of truth was the Banana Ball draft on November 14, 2025. Harris' family threw a draft party at the Iron Horse Sports Pub in Unionville.

"I was projected to go anywhere from the fourth to the fifth round, and the first five rounds were televised. So I'm sitting there waiting for my name, and it doesn't get called."

By this time, Harris was used to setbacks. But the next day when the draft continued, he was chosen by the Bananas in the eighth round. He started training with the team a week later.

"It was the dream I never knew I had," he says. "I'm able to play baseball but also use my personality to provide an impact that's much bigger than the game."

Life as a Savannah Banana

A day at practice is mostly baseball, but the players also spend a lot of time making videos for social media and practicing trick plays. Harris might integrate an around-the-back toss or a toe touch into his windup. He already has a strikeout celebration called the "strikeout side-kick." All of this is encouraged.

"They preach that whatever is normal, do the complete opposite," Harris says. "Looking out at the fields during practice is crazy because you see all these super-talented fielders going between the legs and doing backflips. Every game we try to do 25 to 30 different things that have never been done on a baseball field, so different dances, different flips, different trick plays. That's what's different about the Bananas versus the Harlem Globetrotters. The Bananas, there's a different show every single night, and it's not fixed at all - the Bananas lose all the time."

On game days, the players start practicing the choreographed dances (mostly run celebrations) around 11 a.m. After lunch they'll take batting practice, and around 3 p.m. they'll suit up for the pregame plaza party, where they'll entertain fans outside the stadium. By 6 p.m., they're inside the stadium for more pregame entertainment, then the game starts at 7 with a two-hour time limit. After the game it's back to the plaza, where they'll sign autographs.

"You have to be 'on' 24/7 in terms of talking to people and impacting people," Harris says. "And you're doing that from basically 3:00 until 10:30. It's a special breed of people that can be on for that long. You have to be able to have conversations and treat everyone like they're the most important person in the world. If you're having a bad day, you have to push through and realize it's way bigger than you."

What Makes A Good Banana?

Talented players abound in the minor leagues and throughout Division I baseball, but most don't have the personality for Banana Ball.

"People can let their performance on the field dictate the kind of person they are off it," Harris says. "What's so cool about the Savannah Bananas organization is that everybody realizes that yes, we're going to work as hard as we can and try to win, but it's way bigger than just the game of baseball."

Harris certainly has the demeanor (he was warmly welcomed at Luke's, where he knows the staff), but what got the attention of Banana Ball scouts was his stat sheet.

"I was first in the country in least number of walks," he says. "That's what really attracts them for pitchers: pounding the strike zone. Because in Banana Ball, the worst thing that someone sitting in the stands can see is a walk."

Then he had to pass a rather rigorous reference check.

"I gave them five references, and I found out after the fact that they didn't use those because they would obviously have something nice to say about me. So they called people like a coach I played for five years ago or someone who worked in the media where I played, just to see how I treat other people. Because if you're in a summer ball league and you treat a photographer with disrespect, what's going to make you go out and impact fans in a positive way? They definitely take their precautions and try to find the best players, but also the best people."

We caught up with Harris when he had a break from training in Savannah. Of course, he was happy to answer a few questions.

What do you like to do outside of baseball?

I love hanging with my family. My nana is one of my best friends. I've got my mom, my three sisters, my dad - both sides of my family are huge. Playing Banana Ball, you don't have much free time, so anytime I'm back home, I'm trying to spend as much quality time with my family as I can.

What are some of your favorite places in the area?

E&D Pizza is great. Luke's Donuts. I love Avon. I'm very proud to be from this town.

I love Sperry Park. That's where I played Little League. It's one of my first stops every time I'm back because it gives me that perspective: I was that 12-year-old pitching there with a dream of playing baseball for a living, and now I'll be playing in sold-out stadiums all across the country.

What memory stands out from your time at Avon High School?

 My memory that stands out was on the basketball court. We went to the state championship my senior year of high school and played at Mohegan Sun. We ended up losing, but it was just so cool to see the way that Avon rallied around us. Every game was packed to the brim. We had probably 250 students at every game.

What are the challenges of being so tall?

Travel days on the plane are tough. And I have to pay a lot of attention to detail on the mobility because it's a longer lever.

Favorite baseball movie?

 The Rookie. I'm very routine-based, and before every one of my start days, ever since Little League, I would watch a sports movie the night before. Even in college I'd sit down the night before and put on a sports movie. So I've watched pretty much all of them, but The Rookie is one I'll cycle back to a lot because it's that story of having an opportunity and making the most of it. There were so many reasons for Jim Morris to not chase the dream, but he chose to think of every reason to do it. It's very relatable in that way.

You can follow Harris on Instagram or Facebook.

Harris returns to Sperry Park, where he played youth baseball, whenever he's back in Avon. Submitted Photo

Harris played in summer leagues for years, including two seasons with the Mystic Schooners. Submitted Photo

Connor Harris with Sam Masad of Luke's Donuts. Connor is 6'8", the tallest player in Banana Ball. Photo by Carl Wiser