After Sam Claycamp finished his junior year at Franklin College, he had two options on where he could play summer baseball.
One was in Wisconsin in the Northwoods League. The other was in Savannah, Georgia, for a fledgling operation called the Savannah Bananas.
Claycamp, a 2015 Columbus East graduate, went with the warmer climate option. Five years after playing for the Bananas college team in that summer of 2018, he now is a player/coach for the Party Animals team that tours with and plays against the now-world famous Bananas.
“I could have gone and played in the Northwoods League or I could have gone to Savannah, and I wanted to spend my summer close to the beach,” Claycamp said. “It was pretty much a God thing. Being here today, it probably would have never happened had I not been here in 2018 for the summer team.”
After graduating from Franklin, Claycamp played with the Independent League Lexington Legends in the summers of 2020 and 2021. In the spring of 2021, he played with the Bananas in a one-city world tour in Mobile, Alabama, against the Party Animals.
Then in the spring of 2022, Claycamp played for the Party Animals against the Bananas in an eight-city tour throughout the southeast. He played for the Schaumburg (Illinois) Boomers in the Frontier League last summer, then did a six-game series with the Party Animals against the Bananas at the end of last summer.
Last fall, Jesse and Emily Cole, who started the Bananas in 2016, offered Claycamp a chance to be a player/coach for the Party Animals.
“A lot of it is just being around longer than most of these guys, so I know how the show works and the vision of it all,” Claycamp said. “They called me in the fall and asked me if I would be interested in the role, and it was an easy ‘Yes.’ Jesse and Emily Cole are amazing to work for. You can’t compare it to independent professional ball or anywhere else. They take care of us so well. It’s just amazing.”
The Bananas and Party Animals play “Banana Ball,” which is a little different than traditional baseball. Games are played within a two-hour time frame with no stepping out of the batter’s box, no bunting and no mound visits. Teams get a point for winning an inning. Batters can steal first base on a wild pitch, passed ball or any other pitch. If a fan catches a foul ball, it’s an out.
“I would say it’s a lot more fun,” Claycamp said. “In college, there’s something about representing your school and playing on the same team as your classmates. This is more like playing wiffle ball in the backyard with our buddies, but it’s like the World Series because the atmosphere is so high. You get to be yourself as a player and as a performer. It’s pretty crazy, the whole dynamic and all. There’s never a dull moment. Everything is buzzing all the time. If somebody makes a trick catch, the stadium erupts. There’s always something crazy going on.”
Sometimes, the Banans and Party Animals players are in costume.
“We have our own characters,” Claycamp said. “The show is definitely built around characters. We have a player on the Party Animals that will actually put pillows in his pants. That’s his character. I wear kind of wild jackets. Our other manager is a bodybuilder and he’s huge, so he plays off of that. Our second baseman has red hair, so he plays the Irish leprechaun and he makes a bunch of trick plays. Our third baseman and shortstop make trick plays. Our left fielder is like the Stylin’ Hawaiian.”
Claycamp said the Banana Ball show is a little different each game and is vastly different from when he started with the Bananas five years ago.
“We try to do something different that nobody’s ever seen on a baseball field every single game,” Claycamp said. “From 2018 to now, it’s almost unrecognizable. Even though the traditions stay the same, there’s always something new.
“In four years, I’ve never heard a person say they were disappointed in the show,” he added. “I’ve even had people that weren’t baseball fans and people who were diehard baseball fans say that was the greatest thing ever. There’s no slow points in the game. It’s all fast-paced.”
Unlike basketball’s Washington Generals, whose wins against the Harlem Globetrotters are extremely rare, the Party Animals and Bananas are more competitive. In fact, the Party Animals have a winning record against Bananas this season.
“It’s just like baseball,” Claycamp said. “It still has a very competitive integrity, and we’re trying to win. Our goal is to have a winning record in each city.”
The Bananas are in the midst of a tour that is taking them to 20 states. They were in Birmingham, Alabama, this past weekend and will be at Victory Field in Indianapolis for 7 p.m. games Thursday and Friday.
Like the rest of the tour, the games in Indianapolis are sold out. But Claycamp has more than 400 tickets secured for friends and family from Columbus, mostly for Friday’s game.
The games will be streamed on the BTV YouTube Channel, searching “Bananas vs. Party Animals Indianapolis.”
“I’m stoked,” Claycamp said. “I have a ton of people coming. We’re fortunate enough to get some group tickets early on, so we’ll have a lot of people there. There will be a lot of people there that haven’t got to watch me professionally.”