Banana Ball – Oklahoma City – Clows v Tailgaters

Thursday I made my way to the airport and flew United for the first time in YEARS. (I had JetBlue credits that I was able to use with United) Everything went according to schedule and I was quite pleased with my United experience. I got to OKC in the afternoon and was pleasantly surprised that the hotel room was ready and waiting. Our room overlooked the field for the game so I was keeping an eye out for any rehearsals but didn’t see anything.

A few of the players were at a local sporting goods store so I stopped by to see Brett Allen, Sunshine, Joe Gray and Mat Wolf. The players had a lot of fun picking on the kids who were in line and buying Bananas jerseys (even after they said ‘the bananas aren’t even playing!’ before picking them up off the rack!) I didn’t stay very long as I was debating going to see Jayson Arendt up the street from the hotel, but realized I did not unpack my backpack well enough into my purse so I opted to just chill in the hotel room instead.

When I woke up it was raining and there was a tarp on the field, but at about 10:30 I could see some rehearsals going on. My friend showed up about 2 and we decorated our window and then made our way to the plaza. The Tailgaters were out signing so we met a couple, although it was pretty chaotic. We then ended up seeing Eli Paton and my friend gave him a lego that he had custom made of him. We noted we didn’t know where Clark was and figured he’d be in KClub, and sure enough he was. When we got upstairs he said he saw us and was yelling for us – but we didn’t even realize it. We basically had him to ourselves for most of the time as there wasn’t very many people in the KClub area.

We had pretty great seats for the game, just a few rows up from home plate. The Tailgaters took a quick 1-0 lead with a Nick Lopez home run in the first, and then did the same thing in the 2nd with a Jordan Barth home run in the 2nd. In the 3rd despite Joe Lytle (the hometown guy!) fouling out to a fan, the Clowns scored and cut the lead to 2-1. In the 4th there was a strange fair/foul call with Eli Paton – the first base ump first said it was foul and then fair (this isn’t the first time he’s done something like that) so it ended up overturned and Eli got an RBI Ball 4 Sprint – Jorden Hussein fouled out to a fan in the bottom of the 4th and everything was tied up 2-2. Another walk off home run in he 6th for Taj Porter but in the 7th Jalen Vasquez hit a home run. Later Bobby Lada would end the inning with a fan out – to the Tailgaters social media manager! (They recently changed/clarified the rule that staff members in the stands could catch a ball and have it count – this was the first one!) Then we were all tied up at 3-3. Both teams scored 1 in the 8th so no one earned a point and then Nick Lopez came through clutch again with an RBI Walk Off to give the Tailgaters the 4-3 win. Appearing with Mat Wolf was professional rodeo barrelman Flint Rasmussen.

We hung out a bit after in the plaza party to see some more players and to ask Fisher if he really did need a cake for the game the next day, he said yes and told us what he was looking for. We told him we’d get it for him. I then went to stand in Clark’s line while my friend met Peanuts and the guy behind me was complaining and asking why the line was so long. “Because he’s awesome” was what I told him. Clark said it wasn’t his fault his line was so long, he didn’t do it lol And we also found out that they had seen our hotel room window – it was spotted by Vinny before the game.

Saturday morning we went to Dunkin where we saw Niko, Drew, Reese and Jonathan. We got some donuts with the players on them and a Tailgaters koozie.

Saturday afternoon we went to the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame that is at the ballpark. We were told that one of the inductees, a race car driver, was there checking out the museum and his exhibit. We opted to let him and his family have their space, especially since neither of us really know much about race car driving. (I did hear him talking about Tulsa so maybe we could have had a conversation about that!)

We then waited once again for gates to open but since we had Banana Ball Backstage we opted to just hang out in the KClub area in the shade since it was so hot until it was time to go on the field. Eli ended up in KClub and chatting with us for quite a bit. He then escorted us down to the field and helped us out tremendously. BBB was a lot of fun – even if I had to stop Zach Watson from putting mustaches on my clowns poster lol.

Saturday’s game was scoreless into the 4th when the Tailgaters had a Ball 4 Sprint walk off. The Clowns answered back in the 5th with a point, but the Tailgaters had a walk off again from Nick Lopez in the 6th. In the 8th the Clowns tied it up again with an RBI Ball 4 Sprint from Joe Gray, and once again we were going into the 9th tied, this time 2-2. Kyle Martin was the star of the show with a walk off to win it in the bottom of the 9th. It was same game, different day, almost. Clowns put up a good fight and both were very exciting games, even if they didn’t go the way I wanted them to!

We also had Samuel Henderson, who I guess is best known around the internet for his bird calls, do a walk up with Jordan Barth in the 2nd. After the game we were the last ones to leave the plaza party (though mostly because I gave Clark my camera and he ran out after the game and didn’t stop back at his locker to grab it).

I had debated just staying awake all night since I had a lyft scheduled for 3am to take me to the airport, but after my friend decided to drive back home I slept for a couple of hours. I ended up seeing 3 clowns at the airport (though they did not see me). My 5:20am flight boarded without issue and when we landed I had a “we’re sorry for the delay, here all meal vouchers” message from Delta and I was freaking out. Turns out there was a 7am flight after ours to Atlanta that got delayed until 12:30 for departure (good thing I went for the early one!) and they should have been the ones to get the vouchers. My gates in Atlanta were really close to one another and I made it back to Hartford at around 1pm with plenty of time to make it to Andy Grammer (which I’ve already told you about)

This weekend was supposed to be an off weekend but it’s looking like I will be seeing how things go in a football stadium for banana ball as the Coconuts take on the Bananas at Gillette field in MA.