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Ryan Cox running down the first base line
Ashley Smithson

Baseball David Roe, Sports Information Graduate Assistant

Baseball Alumnus Cox, Bananas to Play in Philly on Latest World Tour Stop

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – The Savannah Bananas are set to take the field at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, which provides a great opportunity for locals to see Kutztown baseball alumnus Ryan Cox in action as a member of "The Greatest Show in Sports."

Cox, who plays infield for the Bananas, is known as the "Glove Magician" and is in his third year as an infielder after being selected among hundreds of applicants to join the squad. The Kutztown alumnus played independent ball after his time with the Golden Bears, and earned a tryout with the eastern Georgia-based squad after catching the eye of Savannah Bananas owner Jesse Cole.

The Bananas, a traveling, circus-style baseball team that has a goal of injecting fun, quirky happenings into America's pastime, are making their latest stop on their 2024 Banana Ball World Tour at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia this Saturday at 7 p.m. While tickets are sold out, this game and most others are live-streamed on the team's YouTube channel, while select games are broadcast on ESPN or TruTV.

The 2024 edition of the World Tour is the second year of nationwide travel for the Bananas, following their exit from the Coastal Plain League college ball in 2022. Last year's tour saw the team compete against select minor league teams as well as the Party Animals, a competitive equivalent to the Washington Generals – the archrival of the Harlem Globetrotters. The major league stadium series is an addition to this iteration of the tour, as the stop in Philadelphia is the fifth of six games that will be played in a major league stadium – the most recent coming in Cleveland on Aug. 10.

Cox, a three-year infielder for the Golden Bears, came to Kutztown in 2015 following one season at Division I's St. Bonaventure. He was a .331 career hitter at KU, including a career-best .377 in 2018. The Aliquippa, Pa., product played in 100 career games and accounted for 111 hits, 59 RBIs and scored 59 runs, while boasting a .968 career fielding percentage as a shortstop. Cox was named to the KU Dean's List in three of the four years he was with the Golden Bears.

The Savannah Bananas will take on the Party Animals in front of a sellout crowd at Citizens Bank Park on Saturday, Sept. 21, at 7 p.m.

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