Riyan Rodriguez was sitting in the home dugout at the Valencia High School baseball field when he was approached by an aspiring youth player.
In the middle of reminiscing about his journey after graduating from Valencia in 2016, Rodriguez stopped to sign a yellow baseball for 10-year-old Liam Montiel, something Rodriguez never thought would happen following a high school pitching career that saw him toss just 10 innings over one varsity season.
“It’s nuts,” Rodriguez said. “Going from not playing at all in high school, and knowing that I wanted to go out and play and I thought that I had more out there for me, and then being able to go actually do it — I’m living my dream.”
That dream: Playing professional baseball.
Rodriguez, a Newhall native, actually made it to the professional ranks in 2023 as a member of the Grand Junction Jackalopes, an independent league organization out of Colorado that is part of the Pioneer League. He recorded 27 2/3 innings pitched in his lone season with the Jackalopes, finishing with a 5.20 ERA and 26 strikeouts — not quite celebrity numbers, and probably not enough to get the youth of the Santa Clarita Valley waiting to get your autograph.
Today, however, Rodriguez is known as the “Maniac” of the Savannah Party Animals, rivals of the Savannah Bananas. He does the splits while pitching, does Freddy Mercury impressions on the mound and goes by the moniker “Sexi-Mexi,” an homage to his dad’s nickname that he bestowed upon his son as a child.
“It’s everything that I’ve always wanted in baseball,” Rodriguez said. “I get to act like a clown and I get to play baseball and I get to have fun and I get to interact with kids and give back.”
Banana Ball, as it is known, was officially played for the first time on June 26, 2020, in an exhibition game. It follows most of the same rules as traditional baseball, but with a few twists:
- Games are still nine innings, but each inning is its own game and the team that wins an inning gets a point.
- New innings cannot begin more than two hours after a game starts.
- Hitters cannot step out of the batter’s box.
- Bunting and mound visits are not allowed.
- Batters can attempt to steal first base at any time.
- Walks are not allowed, and anyone who would get walked is allowed to sprint to first base and continue around the bases while every defensive player — other than the pitcher and catcher — on the other team has to touch the ball before the play is live.
- Fans are allowed to catch foul balls, and the batter is out.
- A Showdown Tiebreaker is used at the end of a tied game, in which a hitter must score against a pitcher, a catcher and either an extra fielder or just the battery, depending on how many rounds it goes. After two rounds, the hitting team goes to bat with the bases loaded and continues to do so until a team has won.
- A fan representative is chosen before each game who can challenge one ruling during the game by shooting off confetti and holding up a “fan challenge” sign.
- Once per game, a team can send any hitter in the lineup to bat in what is known as the “Golden Batter Rule.”
Players are also encouraged to bring as much excitement as possible while also trying to win games. Some do flips before catching a ball in the outfield, one player wears stilts and stands at 10 feet tall on the field and one umpire does viral dances after strikeouts.
“The best way I can describe it is we’re like the Fortnite of baseball,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said one of his future plans is to sing a song while pitching.
Fun is the name of the game in Banana Ball, but the players are professionals and they are out there to win, Rodriguez said. That includes 12-hour days during weekends when each team typically plays three games, and the other days are spent practicing like any other team would.
Count Randy Kutcher, a former Major Leaguer who played with Bo Jackson and is now an assistant coach with Valencia, as one who said he couldn’t imagine doing all the things in Banana Ball while also being focused enough to perform at a high level.
So how are they able to do it?
“It’s still a game. Everybody has to realize this,” Kutcher said. “And that’s why I tell these kids, it’s a game. You gotta loosen up and have fun. And if you do, you play better.”
Kutcher said he’s been following Banana Ball ever since Rodriguez became a part of it, and while he understands the appeal of it, he still is astonished how there can be a two-year wait for tickets.
“No pro baseball team has a two-year wait to go watch them, trust me,” Kutcher said. “And the other thing is, you go out to watch a game and you want to see hits and stuff like that and sometimes there’s maybe a no-hitter in the game and that’s awesome to watch, but to watch a guy come out on stilts, do the splits on the mound, do the splits at the plate, backflips — I was watching one and the guy throws his glove off and I go, ‘What is he doing?’ And then he does a front flip and catches the ball with bare hands. I’m going, ‘That’s ridiculous.’”
Playing Banana Ball has allowed Rodriguez to travel all across the country and play at some of the most famous locales in the baseball world, including MLB stadiums. One of those stadiums was Fenway Park in Boston, which Rodriguez said was a place he never even thought would be a possibility for him to play at.
“I never even thought I’d be able to step on that field,” Rodriguez said. “Like I went in, I got to sign the Green Monster. I got to go in places that only players can go.”
There, he met Red Sox legend Bill “Spaceman” Lee along with some other notable Boston baseball icons. Rodriguez said former pros like Lee “want to come out” to see what Banana Ball is all about, with some even taking part in a game.
“They want to participate in the game, which is cool,” Rodriguez said. “Like I’m playing next to Hall of Famers. I pitched, I don’t know, 30 minutes before Bill Lee, and that dude’s a legend.”
Through it all — the fun, the games, the hard work — Rodriguez said he is sticking true to his roots as someone who wants to give back. After Montiel left, another youth player came by seeking an autograph.
He was more than happy to oblige, saying for him, he’s just another baseball player.
“I think a lot of people see us as (celebrities), especially a lot of the younger kids that are on social media and stuff,” Rodriguez said. “But I just feel like I’m playing baseball. And I’m playing baseball the fun way.”
