How Jackson Olson Found Entertainment With Savannah Bananas

BROCKTON, Mass. – The Savannah Bananas present the dynamic crossroad of baseball and entertainment.

One of the team’s stars in Jackson Olson found a new passion to thrill fans with the game he loves, particularly with a popular following on TikTok.

“It’s a love for baseball and a love for entertainment that I found,” Olson told NESN.com in an interview on Wednesday. “TikTok is perfect for this. Banana Ball is all about fans first and entertaining always. They’re all things I love doing. It’s perfect.”

For Bananas players, they must juggle numerous responsibilities each night between playing the actual game while keeping fans entertained.

“You have to find time to take in different moments,” Olson said. “When you have time to warm up and work on your swing, take those moments because you also have to entertain, make TikToks and all this other stuff. You have to find time to do your thing and have fun in between.”

The tour this summer continues to show the impact that the team has had on fans across the country. Olson even compared it to another tour featuring a pop star taking over the summer.

“We go to all of these different cities, but the Bananas fans are all the same,” Olson said. “I like relating it to Taylor Swift when she goes to all of these different places and all the fans are the same. They react the same. It’s cool taking it on the road.”

You never know what you might see during a Savannah game to the biggest extreme. With so many unorthodox visuals, one stands out among the rest for Olson.

“Lighting our pitcher’s hand on fire before he threw a pitch,” Olson recalled. “The first time I went to light it, it didn’t light. We did it the next inning and it got put on ESPN.”

While fans know the players as themselves, Savannah players each have their own characters, as well. Olson went right back to pop culture for inspiration and drew upon an identity from the 2017 film, The Greatest Showman.

“When I came to Savannah, I knew that everyone had a character,” Olson shared. “I literally got it from the movie when Zac Efron comes in and Zendaya goes, ‘So, what’s your character? Who are you?’ He says, ‘I don’t really have one.’ She goes, ‘We all have one.’ That was my thing where I have to have this character. That was the thing and I was ‘The Greatest Showman.’ I took my love for the movie and put it into a baseball game.”

As the sold-out tour rolls on, Olson took a pause after suffering an injury during a game earlier in the summer. After being hit in the face, he returned to a large welcome that reminded him how special the baseball phenomenon has become.

“That was crazy,” Olson said. “I got hit and was in the hospital that night for eight hours still bleeding. They couldn’t stop it, so I stayed there the entire night. The next day, we played in Durham and my parents came down. We went to the game and my face was like a bubble. I walked out not feeling great and got an ovation. It was an out-of-body experience because I didn’t really know what was happening. It was like, ‘This is why I’m here.’ It was a really cool moment.”

Olson represents exactly what the Savannah Bananas attempt to put on at each show: baseball with a new twist and excitement that leaves crowds wanting more.