Savannah Bananas baseball team goes viral for Dirty Dancing routine

Nobody puts the Bananas in the corner

The Savannah Bananas baseball team has gone viral again for their Dirty Dancing routine.

When the opening lyrics of “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes sounded over the PA system during a sold-out game against Party Animals at Jacksonville’s Financial Ballpark, the entire Savannah Bananas baseball team converged to recreate the famous scene from Dirty Dancing.

“It was a massive production that took the whole squad,” Bananas catcher Bill LeRoy told ABC News. “It was fun to pull off the entire thing and have all the guys dancing out there with me, and the fans seem to love it.”

The dance break occurred after a strikeout, in which LeRoy and Bananas pitcher Kyle Luigs did the iconic lift made famous by Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey in the 1980s.

“As soon as that song kind of hit, the people were very excited, and I don’t think they knew exactly what was going to happen,” Luigs explained to the outlet. “I’m sure there’s probably a bunch of people thinking that, you know, they’re surely they’re not going to do this whole this whole scene from, like, my favourite movie.”

“It was many falls and many disasters and a whole lot of trial and error to figure out how my little short self was going to pick his big self up,” LeRoy said, noting that it took a while before they got the move down. A lot of preparation goes into the Bananas’ dance routines, with timing being everything when playing Banana Ball.

Luigs revealed: “It was about a year and a half in the making to where we actually got to do it live full production in front of a crowd.”

“I think what a lot of people don’t realise is you’ll have something set up to do, but if the game doesn’t present you to do it, you’re just not going to do it,” Luigs added. “You got to put it in your back pocket. You know you can’t give up seven runs then go into a dancing promo.”

The Bananas aren’t strangers to going viral, widely known for bringing their signature swagger and silliness to the national pastime. Like others in the past, this video quickly made rounds on social media, and within a matter of days, it garnered more than 11 million views on TikTok.

“It’s one of those things that everybody grew up watching, and they love it, and they understand it,” Kyle Frongillo, director of entertainment for the Savannah Bananas, explained. “The social media is so hit or miss, but certain things that we do, we have a really strong idea that it will go well.”

The Bananas are set to continue to bring joy to the masses, continuing their hot streak after the team recently played at their first Major League Baseball stadium, where they took on the Party Animals at Houston’s Minute Maid Park in another sold-out game. Playing in Houston marked the fifth game of the Bananas “world tour,” which is reportedly set to take 84 games over nine months and will reach six other MLB stadiums.

Their next games will reportedly take place Gwinnett County’s Coolray Field from 22 to 24 March.