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Clemson coach Dabo Swinney leads Savannah Bananas down hill in iconic entrance to Memorial Stadium
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- Clemson coach Dabo Swinney leads Savannah Bananas down hill in iconic entrance to Memorial Stadium
CLEMSON – The Savannah Bananas borrowed Clemson 's football stadium and the iconic entrance as well.
Just like at Clemson football games, the buses rolled up beyond the East end zone, players filed out and it was Tigers coach Dabo Swinney who led the Bananas down the hill onto the field on April 26. When the big screen showed Swinney, the crowd of 81,000 went wild.
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The Bananas, often called the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball, have played in Major League Baseball stadiums but never in a venue this big. Memorial Stadium sold out of tickets in only three hours and fans were lined up hours before the gates opened at 4:30 p.m.
Two days after Clemson's spring football game on April 5, Memorial Stadium transformed from a football venue to a baseball field for the Bananas. The left field fence was only 190 feet from home plate, but with a 50-foot-high net to protect fans.
During the pregame festivities, Bananas owner Jesse Cole called Memorial Stadium "home of the greatest football team in the country." That certainly got the crowd charged up.
IMPACT ON CLEMSON BASEBALL: How Savannah Bananas inspired Clemson to make baseball games more fun
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Todd Shanesy covers high school athletics for the Greenville News, Spartanburg Herald-Journal and Anderson Independent Mail in the USA TODAY Network. Contact him by email at todd.shanesy@shj.com . Follow him on X, formerly called Twitter, at @ToddShanesySHJ .
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Clemson's Dabo Swinney leads Savannah Bananas' stadium entrance
