It seems almost inevitable that Nate Fish would manage a team of dancing, kilt-wearing, baseball-loving professionalplayers in Savannah.
There are reasons why the team owner and fellow coaches call Fish — a career baseball man while maintaining a second life as a working writer and artist — a perfect fit for the Savannah Bananas' brand.
He's seen so much traveling the world to play and coach baseball, from New York Cityto Israel, Argentina to the Dominican Republic, Cape Cod to Los Angeles, and more than one trip to Tokyo.
True story:When Fish played inthe top professional baseball league in Germany, he was paid for six months and amenities include a cell phone, a railway pass and housing.
“The housing they provided was in the mental hospital that just happened to be next to the field,” Fish recalled. “It was inexpensive.”
Have baseball, will travel for Fish, who has carved out a playing and coaching career that he never expected from the sport. Some people live paycheck to paycheck. Fish’s career path seems to advance phone call to phone call, and he’s followed his calling to nearly 20 countries.
“That’s definitely how it shaped up. It was never the plan,” said Fish, 41. “But I kept getting these opportunities and they were too good to say no to — to go live in Europe and get paid for six months. I just kept on saying yes and my phone kept on ringing with opportunity after opportunity.”
Savannah's having a ball:Banana Ball format speeds up baseball game
Fish has spent a significant amount of time in Israel, either playing, coaching or helping develop infrastructure as director of the national baseball program. His next job is third base coach for Israel’s team at the Olympics in Tokyo, delayed from summer 2020 to this July because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
His latest job, in what’s shaping up to be a very busy 2021, is manager of the newly created Savannah Bananas Premier Team, a professional travel squad based in the Hostess City. An expansion from the organization’s collegiate summer league team called the Bananas, the Premier Team made its debut March 13 against designated foil the Party Animals at home base, Grayson Stadium, with the rematch set for this Saturday.
The teams conclude the spring schedule with games March 26 and 27 at Hank Aaron Stadium in Mobile, Alabama.
“We have an amazing group of guys,” Fish said Tuesday. “I think after years of bouncing from independent pro team to team and these sort of internally competitive environments, this probably is a refreshing experience for them.”
He referenced the organization’s fan-first game experience, with players interacting with fans, dancing and performing in comedy bits before, during and after games — while still staying focused on the baseball component.
“These guys are totally into it. They’ve really taken to the entertainment and the rule changes,” Fish said. “You’ve got to have a little bit of adaptability if you’re going to play here, some flexibility.”
Banana Ball
Fish can certainly relate to a nomadic baseball existence, and he’s adapting with the others to Banana Ball, the format for these spring games. The major rule changes are meant to speed up the game to fit into a two-hour window.
More:Savannah's new Premier Team will bring Bananas' style of baseball to the party
Rules include no bunting, no stepping out of the batter’s box, no mound meetings, no walks and legal stealing of first base. Every inning is worth one point, with the first team to five points the winner. Ties are settled by a showdown: the hitter vs. pitcher, catcher and one other fielder. If the batter puts the ball in play, he has to try to score in an all-or-nothing dash around the bases.
Fish found his indoctrination into Banana Ball very exciting. He almost felt more like a spectator than a coach watching the dramatic showdowns. He’s not afraid to try different things in the game.
“Many traditional baseball people would not be into that. I think it’s a really cool experiment,” Fish said. “Honestly, I think it you love baseball, you’re not scared to tamper with it. Because you trust at its most essential level, the game is fine. We can change the rules a little bit. We’re not harming the game. So experimenting a little bit and trying things I think falls within the spirit of loving the game, and not the opposite.”
Versatile in the arts
That nontraditional mindset attracted the Bananas’ brass, along with Fish’s vast baseball experience as player and coach, and his other life, as it were, in the arts. A working author and visual artist, he has delved into subjects serious (racism), romantic (“Poems for My Wife: Love Poems for Non-Romantics”) and humorous (a collection of photos showing “Israelis Drive Anything”). He started his own publishing company, Brick of Gold, which also has published the writings and art of California state prisoners.
“He is able to relate with anybody he comes across on a variety of topics and interests,” said Premier Team assistant coach Adam Virant, who has known his friend and mentor more than a dozen years through coaching at New York City baseball academies. “Nate is an artist, a writer, a great baseball person. … He’s perfect for Bananaland, he really is.”
Savannah Bananas head coach Tyler Gillum had been trying to hire Fish as an assistant on the summer league team for three years.
Gillum was an assistant with Fish on the staff of the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox, a powerhouse team in the Cape Cod League, considered the elite collegiate summer wood bat league.
Gillum came to Savannah the following year in 2018 to be the head coach the Bananas of the Coastal Plain League, considered one of the better summer leagues. He wanted Fish to join him.
Fish, however, accepted other opportunities, including getting hired as a minor league coach in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization in 2019.
“It sort of turned into some twisted version of my childhood dream, which was to play Major League Baseball,” said Fish, who was born in Vermont and spent his early childhood in New Hampshire before exceling in baseball as a teenager in Shaker Heights near Cleveland, Ohio, and then at the University of Cincinnati (1999-2002).
“I ended up playing low-level international professional baseball. It was a long and bizarre route eventually into professional baseball with the Dodgers.”
More:Players hope they have what it takes to make Bananas Premier Team roster
Fish was available to finally join the Bananas organization this spring.
“He’s gonna fit right in,” Gillum said in a press release announcing Fish’s hiring in January. “He just fits everything we do from the creative crazy ideas mindset to the competitive development baseball side of things, he checks both boxes.”
Team owner Jesse Cole said in the same press release that Gillum had recommended Fish as being “perfect for the position.”
“He said that Nate’s an amazing baseball guy and he’s Bananas through and through. He’s got tons of baseball experience and he understands the show element of it all,” Cole said.
“He’s the perfect man to coach our Premier Team because he’s bringing knowledge from such a diverse background of experiences in and out of baseball and he’s got the mindset of being ready to try anything.”
Coming to Savannah now was perfect timing, said Fish. He will be able to join the Israel baseball team for preparations for the Olympics in July. In August, Fish is getting married to his fiancée Shawna Watterson. He bought a house two months ago in upstate New York.
As much as ever, Fish appears to be settling down a bit.
Nathan Dominitz is the Sports Content Editor of the Savannah Morning News and savannahnow.com. Email him at ndominitz@savannahnow.com. Twitter: @NathanDominitz
