Savannah Bananas play ball with the Miracle League
Posted April 13, 2024 7:33 p.m. EDT
Updated April 13, 2024 8:28 p.m. EDT
The Savannah Bananas played most of its baseball games this weekend at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, but spent Saturday morning across the street at the Miracle League of the Triangle's Durham field, alongside a group of the Miracle League's best players.
"I had a sweet little girl named Anna today," seven-year Banana veteran Kyle Luigs said after the game. "We made a handshake, I figured out her favorite pizza is pepperoni pizza and she loves watching basketball and Steph Curry."
The Miracle League of the Triangle is part of a nationwide baseball league for kids and adults with physical and mental disabilities.
"Our league is based on our special needs population here in the Triangle," Benjy Capps, the executive director of the Miracle League of the Triangle, told WRAL when the park opened in 2023. "We allow them to play a game of baseball. Which they love and they want to come out and be a teammate."
The teams partnered together for two innings, giving everyone a chance to take an at-bat and run the bases.
"Every city we go to, we try to do something unique where we go out to a community event or some type of Miracle League or something going on where we can be present and show face, just because we're coming into their town, people are coming to see us, we just want to give back as much as possible," head coach of the Party Animals Mike Vavasis said.
The Savannah Bananas are a traveling baseball team focused on entertainment, doing everything from skits to dances on a baseball diamond.
"Just being able to connect with someone and spend some time with them and just really build a relationship with someone you just met an hour ago, it's a beautiful thing," Vavasis added.
"It's just giving them an opportunity to be heard, to truly be heard and feel like they're understood by somebody outside of their family and it creates memories they'll never forget and memories we'll never forget," Luigs said.
The Savannah Bananas finish its three-game series at the DBAP on Sunday with the game starting at 1 p.m.
