What Is Banana Ball Like? Christian Davis on Pro Baseball, Travel, and Opportunity | Episode 90
What You'll Learn in This Episode
Host Ross Hawley sits down with Christian Davis, a left-handed pitcher for the Texas Tailgaters of Banana Ball. Not long ago he was finishing a season with the Frederick Keys in the MLB Draft League and wondering whether the grind was worth it. Now he pitches in front of 40,000 people at a time, signs autographs before and after games, and is learning the business behind the fastest-growing show in baseball.
Davis grew up in Newton County, about 30 minutes outside Atlanta, pitched at Southern University, and joined the Tailgaters for their inaugural season. This conversation covers what changed his mind about what a baseball career can look like, how he trains for a game with a pitch clock in the six-to-eight-second range, why a fan-caught foul ball changes how he attacks an 0-2 count, and the three things he wants young players to hear.
The highlights:
- Thirteen games in 13 days, and the moment he started questioning the traditional path
- Why he sees no competition between Banana Ball and Major League Baseball
- The prayer in the bullpen before his first start in a big league stadium
- Jesse Cole's notepad, and the habit of writing down 10 ideas a day
- Learning to dance, and what living outside his comfort zone did for him
- Arm care after a high school labrum tear, and the program that ended the breakdowns
- How a fan-caught foul ball turns into an out, and how he pitches to it
- Advice for players: comparison is the thief of joy
From the Draft League to a Banana Ball Tryout
After his season at Southern University, Davis went to the MLB Draft League with the Frederick Keys. His first stretch there was 13 straight days of games, travel included, and the wear and tear made him wonder whether the traditional climb was for him. His dad had already asked whether he wanted to keep playing, and Davis had half-joked that he would if it were with the Bananas.
Then the Tailgaters' catcher, Taj Porter, called and asked if he could see Banana Ball in his future. Davis went to a tryout, had the most fun he had had on a field in years, and walked out with a different definition of what the job could be.
"It's more than just numbers on a page. It's about the fan experience, it's about your experience, it's about traveling the world."
The Joy He Thought He Had Left Behind
What he describes getting back is the feeling of being a kid on a ball field with his friends. He is already counting the days to spring training and to being around his teammates again. He also does not take the scale of it for granted: the league plays in front of 40,000 people a night and more than two million across a year, and he treats putting a smile on those faces as the actual product.
Not a Competitor to Pro Ball
Davis is firm that Banana Ball and Major League Baseball are separate things, not rivals. There are parts of pro ball that Banana Ball will never offer and parts of Banana Ball that pro ball will never offer, and his team still trains to be the best players they can be, because the show does not work if the baseball is bad. What he does see is players in the minor leagues who have been grinding five to 10 years, who know the window is closing, and who now have another place to keep playing.
He says the stats are still in the back of his mind, just not the front of it, and he credits that for the year he had.
"I wasn't worried about going out there and dominating. I was worried about going out there and having the most fun I can have."
He thinks purists who only see the trick plays on social media are getting an incomplete picture, and that a single game in person would fix it — the format is far more baseball than people expect, wrapped in a show that runs about two hours. At around $35 a ticket, he points out, parents can actually enjoy the game while their kids stay entertained.
Faith, Humility, and One Person at a Time
Asked about his faith, Davis frames it as scale: he is one grain of sand on a beach, and the question is how much that grain can do for other people. He repeats something he has heard from Jesse Cole, that it always starts with one person, and he measures himself by what he passes on rather than by followers or money. He credits his dad for setting that standard at home first.
What he thinks the people closest to him are most proud of is simpler: that he has stayed humble and grounded with a platform that makes it easy not to be. His prayers, he says, start with thanks — for the opportunity, for his abilities, for the perseverance that kept him from quitting when he could have — and then move to the things he struggles with and to asking for the right people around him when he needs someone to talk to.
Four Innings in Philadelphia
His first start in a major league stadium came in Philadelphia. It did not hit him until he got to the bullpen, where his heart started pounding and the ball stopped feeling like a ball.
"My heart just started racing and the ball felt like a pebble in my hand."
He stayed out there through the national anthem, said a prayer, felt his heart rate settle, and went four innings that felt like two. The pregame routine helps more than he expected: the team signs autographs two hours before first pitch in 30-minute groups, so by game time he has already met a good share of the crowd and knows they came to have a good time rather than to watch someone throw a shutout.
Ten Ideas a Day
On the first day of the Tailgaters' inaugural spring training, every player found a personalized notepad and pen waiting in the locker room, with one instruction from Jesse Cole: write down 10 ideas a day. Anything counted — a plan for the week's social posts, a walk-up song for the next series, a goal. Davis says the habit opened his eyes to how many directions he could go once he is done pitching; right now he is pointed toward pharmaceutical or medical device sales. If an idea is not written down, he says, it is gone.
He has also stopped treating the game as the whole point. Referencing a previous Baseball Forward guest, former big league pitcher Chad Durbin, he notes how easy it is for young players to fixate on rankings and numbers when recent Cy Young winners came out of high school with two or three offers. The work and the relationships are what move a career, and he says it takes a village either way.
Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
Playing in Banana Ball meant learning to dance in front of tens of thousands of people, which he says did not come naturally. The part he did not anticipate was how much the rest of him grew with it. Public speaking was already a strength, but he is now working toward speaking without notes and saying things in a way anybody in the crowd can follow. At family gatherings, relatives ask him to teach them the line dances.
"Just being out of your comfort zone for so long, it makes it normal."
Training for a Pitch Every Six to Eight Seconds
Davis gets his pitching progressions from Chad Durbin's Performance Pitching Academy, a place he knows from both sides — he has worked at the facility as well as trained there. He tore his labrum in high school and spent years starting seasons strong and then breaking down, until he got a program built for him and the arm issues stopped. He has been religious about it since, and he is in a ramp-up phase now.
The one real difference in Banana Ball is conditioning, because the league wants a pitch delivered every six to eight seconds. That suits him. He does not do much entertaining on the mound beyond a quick celebration after a strikeout; he would rather get the ball and go, keep the hitter from thinking, and mess with timing. The trade-off is a compressed week — games on Friday and Saturday with some Sundays, a stop in Savannah, then travel to the next city — so his weekdays are conditioning, lifting, running, and med-ball work, and the road is where he has had to adapt.
The Fan-Caught Foul Ball
In Banana Ball, a fan who catches a foul ball records an out, and the Tailgaters' first-ever win came on one. The ball went up near the left field foul pole, a fan who had been moved to that seat by a staffer caught it in a glove, and it took the team a beat to understand the game was over before they poured into the stands, pulled him onto the field, and included him in the postgame celebration.
It has also changed how Davis pitches. In 0-2 counts he would rather attack than waste a pitch, because hitters get defensive and foul off more balls — and now a foul ball in the seats is another way to get an out. The most he has seen in one game is six. He estimates he signed roughly 5,000 autographs last season, and the part he keeps coming back to is a kid catching a foul ball, getting walked onto the field, and spending an inning with the team.
Advice for the Next Generation
For players: Davis gives three things. The first is that comparison will quietly undo the work you have already done.
"Comparison is the thief of joy, so don't compare yourself to anybody. What's meant for you is meant for you."
The second is to enjoy every second on the field, with the understanding that bad days are coming — home runs, strikeouts, the occasional four-strikeout night — and that none of them are the end of the world. The third is to surround yourself with people who genuinely want to see you succeed, and to find a mentor who will show you the ropes and give you someone to ask questions of.
He ties it back to preparation with a classroom comparison: if you walk into a test still hunting for a pen and paper, your mind is already off the test, but if you come prepared you have time to gather your thoughts. Prepared weeks are why he can pitch without worrying on the weekend. His walkout song last season was "Hips Don't Lie," chosen for the crowd rather than for himself, and his teammates have pulled him into country music and line dancing since.
Episode Timestamps
Tap any timestamp to jump the player straight to that moment.
- 0:00 — Introduction
- 1:38 — Southern University, the draft league, and 13 games in 13 days
- 4:16 — The joy he did not know was still there
- 6:19 — Is there competition between Banana Ball and Major League Baseball
- 8:08 — Faith, and impacting one person at a time
- 10:14 — A racing heart and a prayer in the bullpen in Philadelphia
- 11:55 — Playing off the crowd, and how the pregame signing settles nerves
- 14:48 — Ten ideas a day, and the notepad from spring training
- 17:19 — Why rankings and numbers narrow a young player's view
- 18:27 — Learning to dance, and getting comfortable being uncomfortable
- 21:27 — Going in with intention: the competition and the business side
- 24:04 — Pitching progressions, a torn labrum, and an arm that held up
- 25:02 — Conditioning for a pitch every six to eight seconds
- 26:06 — A two-game weekend and life on the road
- 29:01 — Could a kid forgo the draft for Banana Ball
- 31:29 — Whether players with pro experience want to go back
- 35:55 — The craziest thing he has seen: a fan-caught foul ball
- 37:25 — How a fan-caught foul ball changes the way he pitches
- 41:18 — Advice for the next generation
- 44:49 — What his prayers sound like
- 47:12 — Walkout song: Hips Don't Lie
Christian Davis is a left-handed pitcher for the Texas Tailgaters of Banana Ball. Subscribe to the Baseball Forward Podcast for more conversations with the players, coaches, and leaders elevating the next generation of the game.