He Grills at First Base — Inside Banana Ball's Wildest Coach | Coach Bart, Texas Tailgaters

He coaches first base in a floppy hat, short shorts, white Nikes, and a six-pack beer belt — while running a lit grill. Meet Coach Bart, the utility man of the Texas Tailgators, and the most authentically tailgate human being in professional sports.

Andrew "Coach Bart" Bartman spent 12 years coaching college baseball, two years running the world's biggest baseball coaches convention, and six years as USA Baseball's Director of Coaching Development before landing exactly where he was always meant to be: grilling hamburgers at first base in front of thousands of screaming fans while simultaneously coaching base runners, assigning umpires, and running youth camps.

This episode goes deep on what it's actually like to be part of the Banana Ball world — the pregame tailgates sponsored by HEB, the custom Coach Bart smoker that travels city to city, the 4.2 million people on the ticket waitlist, what the TV deal with ESPN and ABC looks like, the foster family visits with gift cards and no cameras, and why the "Get To" mindset changes everything.

What we cover: How Coach Bart went from USA Baseball to cooking at first base · The floppy hat, short shorts, and beer belt origin story · The HEB sponsorship and pregame tailgates at Texas games · A lit grill at first base — Jesse Cole's actual instructions · 4.2 million on the ticket waitlist and how the K Club works · Every Banana Ball game is free on YouTube, always · Banana Ball on ESPN, truTV, CW, and a primetime ABC slot · Foster family gift basket visits — no cameras, no PR · The custom Coach Bart smoker with hot dog dampers · Favorite tailgate food: ribeye, olive oil, butter, Kinder's SPG · Favorite drink: Natty Light, no apologies · Dream tailgate guest: John Kruk

Transcript

Intro

Luke 0:00

Welcome back to the Tailgate Connect podcast. I'm your host, Luke Lorck with Tailgating Challenge. I love all things tailgating. And in today's episode, we have Coach Bart with the Texas Tailgators with us. We're going to talk tailgating. We're going to talk about his favorite beers, his food, and all the crazy things he does with Banana Ball to increase the fan experience. You got to stay tuned to hear some of this. We have a legitimate tailgator with us here this evening, Andrew Bartman, Coach Bart. How are you doing, sir? I'm fantastic, man. Thanks for having me, Luke. For sure, for sure. And for those that don't know, Coach Bart is actually with the Texas Tailgators, with Banana Ball, with, I mean, everything's blowing up right now with that whole sport of what you all are doing. So again, first off, thank you for being here this evening, hanging out with us. Because anytime I can talk to someone that uh really is in that tailgating world, it warms my heart. So I love that you're here with us this evening. And but the first thing, like I guess want to get it for those that don't know, if somebody doesn't know what the Texas tailgators are, tell them what that is right now.

What is Banana Ball and the six-team BBCL?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Love to do it. Love to do it. So everyone says, Oh, you're the bananas. No, we're not, but we kind of are, right? So banana ball. And I love, love, love that you referenced it as a sport because that's really what we want to make sure people understand. Banana ball is a new sport. It's a whole lot of baseball, but it has got our banana-ified twist on it. The sport is called banana ball. Right now we have six teams in 2026, so there's three games going on every single weekend in different parts of the country. We've got the Savannah Bananas, the Party Animals, the Firefighters, the Texas Tailgators, the Loco Beach Coconuts, and the Indianapolis Clowns. Coconuts and Clowns are new teams this year. The Tailgators were the newest team last year. And so uh we've got a six-team league. We have standings in the Banana Ball Championship League, the BBCL. And uh, we've got our our in-season tournament starting in two weeks, and we've got our end of the year tournament that'll be going on around the first week in October.

Luke 2:39

Excellent. Excellent. So before we're gonna talk some more about the Texas tailgators and what you do specifically, but I have to start with this question. Why do you love tailgating?

Player and fan interaction — what you don't get in real baseball

SPEAKER_00 2:51

People just love hanging out with people, and uh the boys, the boys are all out there. We talk about the boys all the time. Like the boys on our team, we call them boys, they're really grown men, but um, but we just like hanging out with the fans. And that's something that you don't get, major league baseball, minor league baseball. You get that banana ball. You get a whole lot of player and coach interaction if you're a fan. So if you're someone that wants to be really invested, have personal relationships with the people that wear the uniform, man, banana ball is a place for you.

Tailgating before banana ball — college baseball days

Luke 3:16

Now, before before you were a part of the Texas Tailgators, maybe before the Texas Tailgators were even a team, tell me about did you do some tailgating in your past life before you became a member of the Texas Tailgators?

What's the actual title? Utility Man / Coach Bart

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yeah, like I played college baseball, and of course the college I went to had football, so yes, we tailgated. Not a not a big college, not anywhere you've ever heard of in Central Illinois in the middle of the cornfields. But yeah, we would tailgate and uh always loved, like I said, man, I love food. I love cold drinks and mugs, and I love being around people. So tailgate's a natural, a natural attraction for us.

Luke 3:51

No doubt. No doubt. Okay, so I understand. Um, utility man, is that your title within the Texas Tailgators?

The banana ball youth tournament — anti-travel ball

SPEAKER_00 3:59

That's my title within Banana Ball because I'm the I'm the hitting coach, assistant coach to the Tailgators, coach first base. I'm the umpire assigner for the whole league. So we cultivate new banana ball umpires. I schedule them in all different cities. And also uh what really drew me to it is the opportunity to help with our youth programming and banana balls. So we've got some youth camps that we're doing, satellite camps around the country and the cities that we're in. We had a banana ball youth tournament last year, and it's the anti, it's anti-travel ball. We didn't let teams sign up for this. You had to sign up as an individual, make new friends, try a different position, and just have a whole lot of fun. And parents said it was the best weekend they had all year, without a doubt. So, yeah, so man of many hats, you know. Um, what what do they say, you know, like uh I'm trying to think of the right term. Like somebody who knows how to do a few things but master of none, you know, that's me.

Luke 4:48

Uh yeah. So again, because that's I was wondering, because I I've I've heard Coach Bart and everything, but that's all utility man. So it makes a little bit more sense now because of just basically all the stuff you have to do under that coaching umbrella. So you're the utility guy, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

I'm gonna give you a phrase that our team says all the time. We're not gonna say have to, we're gonna say get to. Get to. We say get to all the time. You come in, we come in, we take BP, we do rehearsal. It's a hundred degrees in Scottsdale last week. All right, you guys gotta be outside to sign autographs in five minutes. You hear a player, a new player. Oh, we have to go out there that quick, and all you just hear 10 guys. Get to, get to, get to, because that's the mentality we want to have, man. We get to do this. And anytime that you complain about anything in banana ball, you're crazy uh because we get to do all this fun stuff and we get to bring so much joy to people. So we like to focus on the get to. It's a privilege and opportunity, right? Absolutely. A million people would kill to trade places with us. I know everywhere we go, I'm postgame signing, and I see all the dads, they gravitate towards me and they're like, man, you got my dream job. I said, Yeah, you see my getup out there. I don't know if you all have a still picture of me or whatever, but I'm I'm the dad at the tailgate, the floppy hat, the short shorts, the white shoes, and a six-pack beer belt. And I'm like, I get to just go out there and embarrass my kids, basically. And have a good time doing it, right?

How did you get here? The long winding road

Luke 6:03

That's right. That's right. So tell us, like, because again, going back to people saying, like, man, you have a dream job. I wish I had that job. Like, tell us how you got there. Because again, it's it's not just like, well, we just picked this guy to be it. Tell us a little bit about your background. I know you did some stuff with USA baseball. Tell us that, how you built that up, and then how you get transitioned that into being with the Texas Tailgators.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Man, long, long winding road. Coached college baseball for 12 years. I won't give you all the stops, but JUCO, D3, NAI, I was a head coach. I was an associate athletic director. Then I ended up at the American Baseball Coaches Association for two years, put on the biggest baseball coaches convention in the world. And then from there, I transitioned to USA baseball, where I was at most recently for six years, director of coaching development. I traveled the country. I put on free coaches clinics for youth coaches in all 50 states. We had all 50 states over a two-year period. You know, Hawaii was terrible. I scheduled at the weekend of our 15th wedding anniversary. But, anyways, um, it's it was it was a lot of fun, you know. But I was by myself a lot and I was away from my family a lot. And um, I've got a wife and two daughters, and without the wife I have, I wouldn't get to do half of the stuff I've been able to do, right? Like the support's unbelievable. So uh at USA the last few years, Tyler Gillam, who's the manager of the bananas, the head coach in the cowboy boots from eight, Oklahoma, um, he was a junior college coach at South Mountain in Arizona. He had spoken at a couple of my coaches' clinics. We were friends. He had said for a couple of years, like, man, you'd be a good fit in Banana Ball. I'm like, ah, I'm at USA baseball. You know, I'm not banana ball stuff. Well, then they had us come out and be um, we've we've also been a foster family. We've had like 35 foster placements in addition to our two daughters. And they had us come out when they launched Bananas Foster, uh, the nonprofit of the Savannah Bananas, they had us come be the foster family in Indianapolis. And so now my wife and daughters are behind the scenes and they see this really cool thing. And it's like, man, could you imagine? Could you imagine if you got to work here? I was like, well, they kind of want me to, you know? So and then uh the timing, everything, everything's kind of worked out. It'd been six great years at USA baseball, and it's my kids are getting a little bit older, and and they can go do some things and be a part of this too. And it's just, it's so much fun. It's so much fun. And you're around people every day that push their limits and really, really try to grow and try to evolve, and nothing is stagnant. It's it's a lot, a lot, a lot of challenging fun, I guess is the right way to put it.

The Jesse Cole interview — notebook, drenched in sweat, no resume

Luke 8:20

So, one of the questions I have is go thinking about like the interview process. Like, I I envision this like, all right, uh, show us how you grill, how you tailgate, can you drink beer, can you do something crazy? What does the interview process to become part of the team look like?

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Well, my interview process was a little bit different because it was more thinking about, hey, there's the tailgators, and then there are these, there's these other roles, right? And so I go, I met them down at Clemson a couple years ago uh when they played Clemson uh for the first time. I think it was the football stadium. And I I go in and uh Gillam says, Hey, you're gonna have breakfast with me and Adam Byron, assist coach of the bananas, and Jesse, Jesse Cole. All right, cool. Get there, we're waiting on Jesse to get there. Jesse just comes running in the hotel lobby, drenched in sweat, notebook in his hand. He's like, nice to meet you. Hey, I stop. I gotta write these ideas down because he went on his 10-mile run and he had his idea book and he's bang, bang, bang. He's like, hey guys, this is what the tournament's gonna look like in 2027 when we have a league. This is two, three years ago. I'm like, this guy's nuts, you know, but it's like real, the stuff he talks about on podcasts, what do you how like that's who he is. It's real. Um then after that, we sat down and he didn't care about my resume. He didn't care about it. He was like, what podcast do you listen to? How do you grow? How do you do this? And I'm I was on my heels. I'm fully interview mode, ready to tell him how great I am, right? I'm like, uh yeah, you know, here's here's this, here's that. And I don't even know if he thought I was a good fit, like moving forward. But uh Tyler and Adam pushed for me, and man, it's been it's been an awesome ride since. I was only supposed to coach for one year and then fully roll into these other roles, but I had so much fun last year, I was I was politicking. I said, Man, I want another year with the boys, you know, and now it's kind of evolved into this character as part of the show with the Tailgators.

What is your part of the show?

The origin of the floppy hat, short shorts, and beer belt

Luke 10:03

For sure. So, so tell the part of the part of the show for those, again, I feel like a lot of people that probably listen to this podcast are gonna be familiar with uh the Texas Tailgators and Savannah Bananas, Banana Ball, and everything. But tell us a little bit about like what is your part of the show? I know there's some grilling. There's a uh, was it a six-pack belt that you have on pretty religiously? Like, plus. Is that a standard thing? Does that vary game to game with what you might do? Tell us, tell us about that.

The grill at first base — Jesse Cole's actual instructions

HEB sponsorship, pregame tailgates, and the ambassador deal

SPEAKER_00 10:33

So there's some standard and some variation. So where this came from, you look at our our third base coach, our manager, Joe Mikelik, is a Texas guy. He's from Denton. He actually is from Houston originally. Uh, been in minor league baseball for 40 years as a player, as a coach. We pried him away from the Rockies. This guy's 62, he's jacked, he's got the Fu Manchu, the cowboy hat, the belt buckle, the chaps. He got custom tailgators, chaps, his boots. He is Texas. So I said, if he's gonna be Texas, I'm at first base. Maybe I could be like hit the tailgate. Like, I want to be a dad at the tailgate. So I pitch it to our entertainment guy. He says, run it during a scrimmage, let's see how it looks. I go and I go to a seamstress and I get my my pants cut, like short, professionally hemmed, you know, short. Like if I was gonna be an embarrassing dad too, I got the all-white Nikes, I got the the white socks up to like the base of my calves, our floppy hat, I threw a six-pack beer belt on, and I come strutting out on the field. I think it was us the party animals, and the guys lost it, lost their minds. They're like, this is fantastic. Entertainment director Zach Frangello is walking out, he takes one look, he goes up and down, he's like, yes, yes, we're doing this, right? We're doing this. Cool, man. If you never hit a fungo, if you never hit ground balls with a beer belt on, it's kind of challenging, uh, especially if you have a little wider circumference like I do. Um, it's a little challenging. But um, so yeah, that's that's every game. A lot of interesting interactions after the game, once people see me. You know, actually the first one I'm going out to sign early, and it's oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. But I'm out of first base and I'm dancing, right? And I'm I'm signing autographs and we're having a good time. And then uh when we're the headliner in Texas, this started in Frisco last year. We're in Frisco, Texas. And so in Banana Ball, you've got a home team, a visiting team, but you also have a headliner. So each weekend, the whole series, one team's the headliner. Most of the entertainment's geared towards them. Now, last week in Scottsdale, firefighters were the headliner. We were the home team game one, but we were the home team game two because we are a league with standings. We need to make sure it's an equal number. So in Texas, we weren't the headliner. And us being the headliner in Frisco last year at the end of the season was no team had been a headliner in their first year in existence, other than the bananas. Okay, but they had us do it in Texas. And it was back-to-back back weekends: Frisco, San Antonio, Round Rock. We're at rehearsal day the day before we do this, and we're freaking out because we have all this other stuff to do that we're not used to doing. We're the visiting team. Every game last year we would just roll in, hit our BP, take a nap, eat lunch, do rehearsals, go play. It's 100 degrees, we're out there seven hours. Jesse comes out early, he's pumping everybody up in the dugout. We're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this. Barbara's gonna have a grill at first base cooking hot dogs and hamburgers. When you guys reach first base, he's gonna feed you a hot dog. And we went, huh? And he's like, I need you to champion that grill. You're gonna execute this tomorrow. I said, Okay, sounds good. Sounds good. So I'm like, this guy's nuts. We gotta talk to the grounds crew. I said, Well, you're we're gonna pre-cook all these hot dogs. He's like, No, you're gonna have a lit grill at first base, you're cooking. Say less, buddy. I'm in, you know, like let's go. That's he wants you to turn on a banana ball game and say, this is not a baseball game. Yeah, right? If you got some guy dressed like me cooking at first base, this is not a baseball game. All right. So, so we did it. Everybody loved it, it was great. Um, also, when we're the headliner, we have our pregame tailgate. So uh starting at two o'clock, typically on a seven o'clock game, we'll be out in a parking lot by the stadium. We don't advertise it because we don't want to get bombarded, but people that show up early, they want to hang out. We've got cornhole boards, we've got, we've got uh rope ball, we've got ramp, we've got all this different stuff, and I'm cooking hamburgers and hot dogs, chips and drinks. It's all sponsored, all provided by HEB. If you know anything about Texas, HEB is the standard.

Luke 14:22

I've lived there for a few years. It's the best grocery store in Texas, bar nine.

Foster family gift basket visits — $500 HEB card, no cameras

SPEAKER_00 14:26

It is. They sponsor, they elevated the tailgate this year, man. They've got big-time co-branded tents and tables and all the stuff, and they provide it all. We just execute it with them. They've got their people there, our people there. We do the pregame tailgate, and then we do it in-game. And so that's evolved. It's so, it's so crazy, so mind-blowing that as of a couple weeks ago, myself and Jordan Hussein, our shortstop, are now official HEB ambassadors. Like I'm I'm an ambassador for this, this grocery chain that everybody loves in the state of Texas, um, just by right place, right time. You know what I mean? So they're a fantastic company. And um, man, they've they've agreed to, as part of that contract, they're sponsoring every city we go in in Texas that there's an HEB. When we get in the day before, I'm calling ahead to um a placement agency like Social Work Agency. I'm getting the name of a rock star family that takes those foster placements at her last minute, the kids no one else wants. And we're showing up with this huge gift basket and a gift card to HEB and saying thank you for what you do. So we did it in Round Rock. We had this call on a Thursday. They said, Yeah, let's do Round Rock. And I said, Well, that's tomorrow, this this year, right? I said, Well, that's we're leaving tomorrow. Listen, if you can find somebody, do it. Bang, I had a I had a$500 HEB gift card in my hand. We went, I took four players. Uh, they played with the kids for two hours. We showed up at the house, no cameras, no nothing, man. It was just, it was just a really, really cool thing. So side note on HEB, like they're they're the real deal, the absolute real deal. So we've got our we've got our tailgate, and then we go in-game, and I'm cooking, man. And like, as soon as I started doing that, you know, the party ammo players start drifting over. Hey, give me, hey, give me a hot dog. Hey, give me a hamburger, hey, give me this, give me that. You know, we had fun with it. Sean Fleet would come over and steal stuff off the grill. And then that evolved into I got I got pinged on uh social media this year by uh short-ribbed drum smokers out of Texas, really small custom smoker company. Right. These awesome people are like, can we make you a custom smoker for your time? I'm like, well, yeah. I don't know if you saw, man, this thing's tricked out. It's got like like plasma cut Coach Bart 25. The dampers are like hot dogs, and my number in a state of Texas, and custom Texas tailgaters great inside of it. It's unbelievable. And that's on our truck going city to city. We'll pull that out um every time that we're the headliner. And I'll be cooking on that and also uh using that out at the uh the pregame tailgate. So we're a little worried about college station, man. 102,000 people, football stadium where they probably are just gonna show up in tailgate, anyways. Um, I don't, I might not even go to the game. I may just be out there cooking hamburgers and hot dogs. Ain't nothing wrong with that.

How big are the fan tailgates outside?

Luke 17:06

So that was one of my questions, though. And it probably varies, but I was wondering like, how big are the pregame tailgates just that fans are kind of doing on their own? Like, because again, when I think about NFL and college football, like, is it is it to that level? Like, I haven't been to a game yet. I know I need to get to one of these games, but what does the tailgating scene look like outside of what you all are doing as a collective team?

SPEAKER_00 17:29

It's it's not really because it's such an experience the whole day is. And we have so many what we call early activations in and around the ballpark. So a big league stadium, seven o'clock game, the doors will open at 4:30 and people are on a race to buy merch. So we have all these merch tents.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Okay.

The beer belt — post-game only. Don't sign an 8-year-old's glove with beer breath.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

There's merchandise for every team that you can't get in the online store that you can only get at the game, right? And then we want to make sure people can get in. And we have early autograph signing. We have the march where like all the the home team or the the headlining team is going out and we're going in and around all the people outside, boom, boom, boom, high-fiving everybody until the doors open, right when the doors open. So there's so much going on. There's not as much tailgating. Uh, we have people that just organically show up, but I think as word of mouth happens, it's gonna start becoming more and more. We've seen this year people that were in Frisco and Round Rock San Antonio last year. We played in Frisco and Round Rock already this year, and uh, we saw a lot of those same faces, and they they were there early because they knew we were gonna have the tailgate going on at two, three o'clock. So it's been it's been a lot of fun. So we've got for us, I mean, what we'll have a few hundred people out there, which is not nothing. It feels like a lot when all of a sudden you're hey, we'll get out early and start cooking, get it in the the warming trays, and then you're like, oh, those are gone. We got another wave of people showing up, you know, and you're just scrambling, going, going, going. So it's fun though.

Luke 18:50

So what one of the questions I have in regards to your belt that holds some of those uh liquid beverage refreshments. Yeah. Do you have a specific because I'm assuming, I'm assuming here, you're probably not drinking them as much during the game, or am I off base with that?

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Post game drinks only. Okay, fair enough. We don't want to be, we don't want to be signing an eight-year-old's glove with with with beer on her breath. You know what I mean?

Luke 19:19

Like that's not 100% understand and respect that.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

But boy, there's a bunch of times where there's a bunch of times where I'm cooking out there and it's hot and it's hot, and I'm like, oh boy, I could really use a cold something right now. And they're like, have an H E B Diet Cola. All right, thanks. That'll work for now. You know?

Luke 19:34

Do you in your belt, do you have a specific brand or go-to for post-game, we'll say?

SPEAKER_00 19:42

No, in the belt, in the belt. We say true to true to our brand, man. I've got banana beers. We sell them at the uh ballpark in Savannah. Okay.

Luke 19:49

I I have had one of those when I was back in South Carolina visiting, I was able to find one. I was like, I got I have to try this. So I I have tried that. So the next question is when are they making a Texas tailgator version of that beer for you?

SPEAKER_00 20:01

You would think that'd be on the horizon. So I get asked, I'm trying to give a real number, not just a random. At least a hundred times a game, where can I get banana beers? When are you gonna have a tailgator's beer? At least a hundred times a game. I have no answer for them. Um, I need to talk to our distributor here and see what the deal is. You see the banana beers a lot on the East Coast. I think just distribution-wise, the ballpark's there, you have them, but like west of the Mississippi, we don't see them too often. So yeah, we should. We should have a tailgator beer. I think it should be made by the Lone Star Shinerbach, right? Wouldn't you think?

Luke 20:35

I mean, again, just having one. To me, I'm like, I don't really care personally who makes it, but like, I would definitely have that in my tailgating cooler if uh if that was out there.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

No doubt, no doubt. I had I had an awesome, I got a generic beer belt off Amazon, and I had an awesome fan that was at a few games last year come this year. Hey, coach, I got something for you. It was in this bag. Oh, thanks so much. I'm in the middle of doing stuff. I've set it down. I open it up in the locker room later, and it's it's a beer belt, and we've got tailgators logos and coach Bart 25 on one of the can holsters. And I was like, oh my, like she really put some thought into this. And banana ball fans give the best gifts. I know that. They really, really do. They're they're super invested, and we appreciate it.

Favorite sideline activation on the road

Luke 21:15

What would you say your favorite, we'll call out outside of the ones that you've done personally that you've seen, uh sideline activity to engage the fans has been in your travels?

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Well, it's always a hit when uh when players have their shirts off and are line dancing in front of the dugout. That usually goes over pretty well, you know. Uh, but we do a good job of uh what we call again activations, in-game activations. So the the roses for little girls in the stands in the second inning, um, the hey baby dance in the fourth, everybody does hey baby, the whole stadium. The the pregame warm up where you bring a a five or six year old out and and they're doing the warm up and the whole crowd's doing it, players, coaches, umpires. Um, but uh one of the good ones. I obviously like is salute the troops. So we don't just salute the troops, we salute the troops, the firefighters, the police officers, the EMS workers, the nurses, the school teachers, the dispatchers, and our players go up in the stands, right? And they see those people standing. They go make sure they have a personal, heartfelt interaction with them, with as many as they can, because it's one thing to just stand back and say, hey, thanks for your service. Another thing to look them in their eye, shake their hand, and really, really thank them. So I think that's one of the better activations that we do in-game.

Luke 22:28

No, I love I love to hear that. Again, you've shared multiple things so far of just like doing things that are good for humanity, for people, and all that stuff. And so I love that part about the brand that you all are doing too. Um, with that being said, I'm just gonna ask, you might be not be able to tell me, but are there any new surprises or anything fans should be excited for as this season gets further underway that maybe they haven't seen before?

SPEAKER_00 22:52

They keep, they honestly keep under wraps from us. They tell us like the week of because they know that we're gonna blab about it, we're gonna go on social media about it. So, like, we'll get our our OTT, we'll get our our entertainment for the week. It's like, hey, here's what we're doing this week. And I'll just tell you, next week, even though we're not the headliner in Chapel Hill, North Carolina at UNC's football stadium, um, I'm gonna be front and center in one of the run celebrations, and it's gonna be crazy, and I'm gonna embarrass the hell out of my daughters nearing it. So I would tune in, not this Saturday night, but next Saturday night, seven o'clock Eastern. It'll be good.

Luke 23:27

Now, with that being said, um, I know I've started to see more of these games on television. Can you tell it like, are more and more of them going to start to be on TV for people to watch? Do we know what that looks like with broadcasting rights moving forward?

Free forever on YouTube — that's the commitment

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Yeah, so two things. Number one, um, every banana ball game will always, always, always be for free on YouTube. So you just have to go to the YouTube channel of the headlining team. So, like last week, firefighters were the headliners. So the the broadcast is on the firefighters YouTube.

ESPN, truTV, CW, and a primetime ABC slot this year

Luke 23:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Also, we have a ton of networks beating down our door, wanting to do stuff with us. And obviously, there's that big Disney tie-in. We just had Bananas Day at Disneyland. So we got some games on ESPN, ESPN Two, ESPN Plus, which also in turn puts them on Disney Plus because of that relationship. They just announced our true TV schedule uh for all the banana ball games that'll be on true TV this year. We've also got stuff on the CW network, and there is gonna be a banana ball game on network television on ABC, I forget at what point this year, like a primetime ABC time slot, which is something new. Um but yeah, no matter where it's at on broadcast, that's why the organization won't do just a straight up deal with ESPN. Jesse's put his foot down and said, no matter what happens, we're gonna keep this free for anybody that wants to watch it on YouTube. So you could always watch and re-watch any banana ball games you've ever missed on YouTube. Beautiful. I I did not know that, so I'm glad you shared that with us this evening as well, too. Well, well, and just so you know, like the company's name is not the Savannah Bananas. The company's name is Fans First Entertainment. My paycheck comes from Fans First Entertainment. And that is a real um intentional name they gave to the company because everything that we do, we want to be fans first.

Fans First Entertainment — the intentional company name

Luke 25:09

And and again, from a from a little bit about what I know about Jesse and the and the mission with this, it's not only to have a lot of fun and interact with people and do good things, but it's to keep the fans first and is to keep, I mean, because ticket prices could be a lot more expensive. Is that what Zach Gardeza?

Ticket scalpers, no fees ever, and how the secondary market works

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Oh, yeah, without a doubt. We even took it a step further. So we get so many emails, and people just get duped by ticket scammers and ticket scalpers. There's been times where people have shown up, driven eight hours, shown up, and they're like, here's my tickets. They're like, these aren't real tickets. Um, and we find a way to get them into a game most of the time. So we we now have our own secondary ticket marketplace. So if you have verified tickets, you can send them or sell them to someone else who has verified tickets or a verified account. That's a fan. We're taking ticket masks. There's no fees, there's never fees on tickets. Minor league tickets are$35. Uh, major league tickets are, I want to say 40, no, 40, 30 or 40 upper, 60 lower. Major league stadium football stadium, lower level, 60 bucks. That's it. That's all in. No fees, no hidden fees, no nothing. Uh, and yes, it could be a lot higher, but that's not our business model.

Luke 26:17

And with that being said, I I know when I looked recently or heard from Mr. Brett Loftus with your organization. He told me that. Brett Loftus, yeah. He told me that, like, he's I was like, hey, Brett, um, can I get some tickets? He's like, yeah, in a couple years. Like, what does that look like now for like some of these fans that are looking to go? Like, if somebody really wanted to go to a game, talk about that secondary market or or tickets of how people can actually get out there if they wanted to come to a game this year.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

The there are 4.2 million people on the ticket wait list this year. There's more people more people on the wait list than there are. We're gonna play in front of 3.4 million. There's 4.2 million additional on the wait list. However, they need if you're real, if you really want to go to a banana ball game next year, you need to join the K Club. It's kind of like Amazon Prime for banana ball. I think it's 50 or 60 bucks. You get a lot of benefits being in the K Club, and they don't, they don't accept everybody, right? It's it's fairly selective. They call it the class of whatever, class of 2027. K Club members get to purchase, I think it's like up to six tickets to as many games as they want before they go on sale to the general public. So we have a lot of K Club members. That's the easiest way to do it, and it's a way of us rewarding our most ardent fans, right? The ones who really, really support it. And that's the best way to do is to apply it to be in the K Club. And again, no, no guarantees you're gonna get in it. I mean, that's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. But make sure you, if you get tickets somewhere, man, make sure they're real. Make sure they're real. The easiest thing is that the the go dot bananas.fans first tickets, I think is the website.

If you show up with fake tickets, Coach Bart is NOT letting you in

Luke 27:58

Yeah, don't get faked out and don't take this message that if you show up with some fake tickets you made at home, that Coach Barts are gonna let you in every game because some people get in. That's not the message. Absolutely not.

Do the Tailgators have an arch rival?

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Absolutely not. I'm just saying there's been a few times where people have waved the magic wand and and helped out some folks when they could, when we had the capacity to do so.

Luke 28:18

That's good stuff. All right. Um, tell me this. Do, I mean, just like, you know, I'm I'm from South Carolina, so just like the Game Cots and the Clemson Tigers are our tribals, do the Texas tailgators have an arch rival within Banana Ball right now?

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Not really. I think we're too new. It's um Bananas Party Animals, man, because they just played each other for a few years. You know what I mean? So last year was a big test. The part animals headlining their own tour. We were with them. And man, I tell you what, us the part animals, players, coaches, we could just go battle it out on the field and then hang out after the game. It was awesome. We had there's really, really good people around. Um, a lot less, say the right thing here, a lot less scrutiny than like a bananas game. You know, bananas game is way more lights, way more media, way more this, way more that. We got to just go play, have fun, learn how to play the game. And it was really, really good for us. And then, you know, once a month you go pop in and play the bananas at Daiken Park in Houston and go, oh my gosh, where are we at? You know, or at PNC in Pittsburgh. And it's fun to play those big venues, but honestly, you ask players, they love the minor league parks. Way more fan interaction, way more, way more wholesome, way more, not wholesome is not the right word, but uh way more, you get way more one-on-one stuff. It's cool. You walk into Pittsburgh, PNC Park, and you're like, this is the most beautiful place I've ever been, but then you're only interacting with fans in like the first two rows by your dugout and nothing else. And there's you can't do the post-game plaza party, which if you're at a minor league park, you get the post-game plaza party. Um, both teams are out there, coaches, we're signing, a band's playing, like Tailgator's band, Jason Art, our guy who leads our band was just on stinking American Idol. You know, he went through, he got the golden ticket to Hollywood from Carrie Underwood. Um, he's out there playing a free concert for you. You know, it's awesome if you can go to one of those minor league parks.

Favorite venue so far — Cincinnati, hometown game, all the family there

Luke 30:04

What would you say your favorite venue is you've been to so far if you had to pick one?

SPEAKER_00 30:11

That's tough. We're in, gosh bless, we're in double A, triple A, or Major League parks every single I think the one for me was Cincinnati. Um you get you get a hometown game every year where they reserve a ticket block for you so your friends and family can see you. I'm from the Midwest and we chose Cincinnati. And like parents, aunt and uncle, and my wife, her sister, family's all there, and we're in the trucks as we do our entrance in like the left center gate, and the gates open. We hadn't played a big league park yet. The gates open, and there's 40,000 people going crazy. And it was like every hair on your body standing up, and you're like, I'm getting ready to coach in the major league, sold out major league stadium in front of all the people that I care about. You know, that for me, that was that was pretty much the tops.

Biggest challenge people wouldn't expect about this job

Luke 30:59

No doubt, no doubt. Now, Coach Bart, you told us a lot of the reasons why you love your job, right? It's easy to see. Tell us the biggest challenge that maybe people wouldn't think about about having your job with the Texas tailgators.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Oh, being away from f my family, being away from home. We travel all these places, we do all this cool stuff, and like you just try to find nooks and crannies to FaceTime and be around. And we've got this week off for Easter. I am home. It's it's fantastic to be home for a few days and help my wife out. We've got two daughters who are great, but obviously, you know, I want to be around them a lot more. So that and um the schedule, man, the the game schedule for the tailgators, we have way more stuff in our pregame than anybody else, and we're the headliner. So we go from I want to say I'll take the 8 a.m. bus to the field, we'll help set the locker room up with our ops people. Um, we'll be BP, rehearsal, lunch, get changed, go out, start the tailgate from two, I'll be there at 1.30 to about 3 30. Then we're doing early signing, then we're dropping the rope, we're doing the marks, then we're dropping the rope at 4 30 to let people in. Then we're doing VIB on the field, like banana ball backstage. Right. Then we're you catch your breath for like 15 minutes, then you're on the field again, you're doing your intros, you're playing the game, then you're doing the post-game plaza party, then you're eating dinner, and then you're leaving the ballpark at midnight. And then on days that it's a one o'clock game, you turn around, you take a 715 bus to the ballpark, and that whole schedule's condensed. I'm out there cooking breakfast sausages at 9 a.m. in in Round Rock, right? Put them in, putting breakfast sausages in those H E B butter tortillas, which everybody loved, but I mean, still man, it's it's a grind, but it's only like for two or three days a week, you know, and then you get to recuperate and then go on to the next one. So I guess time, time is the only thing that uh I wish we had more of.

Luke 32:52

I I think we can all agree on that on that statement right there. Right. Now, let me add it. Real quick question about your daughters. Do they still get embarrassed by dad with what he's doing, or have they kind of now it's kind of like, whatever, dad, we see you. We're not embarrassed anymore.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

1000% embarrassed. So embarrassed. It's fantastic. Like, who doesn't love that? If you're a dad, who doesn't love that?

Luke 33:13

Yeah, because I'm sure you you lean into it pretty hard. I I can tell.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Oh, yeah, it's great. And if I'm if I'm somewhere where they're not, I'm signing autographs. There's there's girls that are like my girl's age with their parents, and I'm like, hey, is that your dad? Yeah, I go, is he ever like cringy or embarrassing? They're like, oh yeah. I go, what do you think my daughters say about me wearing this in front of thousands of people? They're like, oh yeah, I guess he's not so bad. I said, Yeah, your dad's not so bad.

Luke 33:36

Perspective.

Favorite tailgate drink — Natty Light, through and through, no apologies

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Perspective.

Luke 33:38

Right. Right. All right. Let me ask you a few quick hitters here as we as we get wind down the show. What's your favorite? I know, I know you said uh your Savannah Banana beer, but do you have any before before all of this, did you have a favorite tailgating beverage that you wanted in your cup when you were tailgating?

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Man, I I'm I'm true to my Midwest roots and and stick to the hashtag never graduate. I am not a beer snob. I am a natty light guy through and through. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Might be disappointing for some folks to hear, but that's that's my that's my drink of choice. All right.

Luke 34:18

So being a grill master as well, what is your favorite thing to cook for other people? I know you mentioned some of the stuff, but is there one in particular that even if you weren't being asked to do it, this would be your go-to?

SPEAKER_00 34:31

It's a ribeye steak. It is brought brought to room temperature. It's got olive oil on it, but we're not doing the whole pan and reverse ear stuff. We're throwing it on the grill with a little, a little salted butter on the grill, putting a little butter bed on there and keeping it super simple. Kinder's SPG, salt, pepper, garlic. No real steak seasoning, just salt, pepper, garlic on it. Boom, boom. That's it. I'm cooking steaks. Beautiful. Beautiful. Okay, steaks. Um, how do you like them done? Medium. Medium. Okay. Medium. A little pink in there, just a little bit of pink. I like it firm, but with a little bit of pink in there. Excellent. All right.

Favorite tailgate game — grew up playing washers in Central Illinois

Luke 35:06

Favorite tailgating game?

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Well, popular now is you know, cornhole or bags, depends on where you're at in the country of what people call them. Like for me, when I was in college, yeah, we played washers. I don't know if you ever played washers. I have. You know, there was octagon box, there's also a square box, and we had AstroTurf inside it. Some the guys who weren't as good put sand in there to kill the washers so they didn't bounce out. Then the tube in the middle. So yeah, we played washers like crazy. Cool.

Luke 35:34

All right, tell me this. Uh, knowing that you're, it sounds like to me, a lifelong baseball guy. If you could be at a tailgate with any current or former baseball player, who would you love the tailgate with as a uh baseball aficionado?

SPEAKER_00 35:50

I think there's one obvious answer, and that's John Cruc. Okay, tell me, tell me why. Because John Cruz, have you ever heard John Cruz's stories about the copious amounts of food and beer he would consume when he was with the Phillies? Creating the post-game, all of it. I mean, John Cruz's the guy. I would want to hang out with Cruckey out.

Luke 36:08

Yeah, no, it sounds like he would probably love to come grill on the sideline and do that.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

We would love, we have guest appearances all the time. We'd love to put Cruz in a tailgator's jersey and he can cook right alongside me at first base. Beautiful.

Luke 36:23

Um, give us give us one tailgating tip just for people like if they're doing a tailgate. What's one thing? Because obviously it sounds like you've done a lot of cooking and stuff in your day. So is there one tip you would give a tailgator on a game day?

SPEAKER_00 36:34

I would have a grill that you can use both charcoal and or propane, and I would have quick light charcoal and have propane with me. Because we were out in Round Rock and the wind was howling like 35 miles an hour, and we're like, what the hell are we gonna do? So we we ran and got a propane tank. And I know it's kind of not everybody likes to use propane at the tailgate, but we it was a necessity and it actually saved us that day. So I would be prepared because you don't want to have a cooler full of meat and no way to cook it if that wind's how.

Luke 37:02

Excellent. All right, last thing I got for you. I know some people are probably listening to this show just because they really love Texas tailgators and maybe they want to get involved, whether it's to become a player, something with the organization. Do you have any advice you would give people that strive to become involved with the sport that you love?

SPEAKER_00 37:19

I would say really, yeah, that's a great question. I would say really just be yourself. So for me, I came from very buttoned up. American Baseball Coaches Association, USA Baseball, very, very reserved, very highly successful, great place. Love it to death. Still talked to a lot of people there. Like it really isn't until this year that I really let myself fully embrace who I like want to be or the character. And I was still kind of fighting that last year. You know what I mean? Believe it or not. This year I'm doing more on social media because I'm like, who cares? I'm just gonna let it rip, you know? Um, it's fine. So on almost every position, player, coach, front office, marketing, whatever, the interview process, there's a link that you got to fill out in a form, and then you also have to submit a video. And it's not about passing the eye test, it's about passing the energy test. And so, like, do you can you really buy into what we're trying to do as an yeah, there it is, just like that. Can you buy into what we're doing as an organization, or are you just gonna sit and read from your script? You know what I mean? Like that, that doesn't work, that doesn't fly. So I'd rather have somebody, I'd rather have somebody screw up what they're saying and say, oh man, shoot. Sorry, I got talking about this, and I was thinking about that, but like here, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna refresh. I'd rather have that than someone who's monotone. Cause like you can't, you can't be with us. You've got to be able to be interacting with people, be fans first. There's people say the craziest stuff to you, and you still got to smile and make them feel, make them feel, you know, like they had they had have that connection with you because that's what we do. We bring joy to people. Everywhere we go, everyone's happy. I saw some friends that I hadn't seen like 20 years in Scottsdale, and they're like, this is so cool. I said, Yeah, like you, you don't you go to a sporting event and we always hear the same thing every time. It's we didn't have any police calls, no security calls, no, like everyone was just having a blast. And like we get to bring that joy to people, and you can't be Mr. Grumpy Pants when everyone else is having a good time, you know?

Luke 39:13

So I I feel like I I I wouldn't be doing my job well if I didn't ask you what's the craziest comment someone has said to you.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

Oh man, is this you said this thing can be edited right now? I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. I've came, I don't know. There's been there's been there's been quite a there's been quite a few. There's been quite a few. I can't really pinpoint one. Um, but yeah, it's been some of the stuff that not just some of the stuff our guys get told, right? Oh boy, some of the direct messages they get from people, poof. It's it's a wild crazy world out there.

Luke 39:47

Again, for a guy that's also heavily into social media for many years or putting myself out there, there's a lot of people that love what you do, but there's gonna be some people that say some things that make you feel some kind of way sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

Oh, yeah, no doubt. No doubt, no doubt. I was talking more about some of the messages our guys get from the uh female and male fans uh in their direct messages. I did should I ask more questions? Should I just keep moving? No, we'll just we'll cut it.

Tailgators second in BBCL standings — catch them on YouTube

Luke 40:13

We'll cut it right there. That'll be fine. That's fine. Oh, good stuff. All right, uh, Coach Bart, was there anything else that I might have missed asking you that we need to tell people about Texas uh tailgators or anything else?

SPEAKER_00 40:25

Tailgators are second in the BBCL standings right now. Um, feeling great. We play the bananas next week. Make sure you catch us on YouTube at all times. Um, check us out and and shoot me uh shoot me a message on social or or uh or shoot me an email. And if you got any questions, man, we're here for you. We're here for the fans and we'd love to interact and and let us know how we can make your experience the best it can be. And if you're gonna be at a game at some point, holler at me. Uh make sure you come to the pregame tailgate. For sure. For sure. And also, Coach Bart, tell people where they can find you on social. I don't even know if I remember all my handles. So all the things. Facebook, I'm on Facebook, um, Andrew Bartman. I think it's andrew.bartman.3. Uh, Instagram is coach underscore Bartman. TikTok is maybe coach underscore Bartman or Coach Bart. You'll see. It's got my picture in a tailgator uniform. Uh, I'm not like big time enough to have parody accounts of me yet. Hopefully that never happens.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

Yeah.

Dancing on Coach Bart's TikTok? Quarter million views says yes.

SPEAKER_00 41:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. I've got a Twitter. That was more like the coaching world uses Twitter or X or whatever it is now. Uh, not as much in our space anymore. But uh, but yeah, I'm there on all of them. So if you have any questions or want to connect, just connect with me there and happy to happy to answer any questions you might have.

Luke 41:37

And and just to incentivize people to go follow you, is would there be any dancing that you do on, say, TikTok? Maybe.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

Maybe, maybe. Give them a follow people. There's been, there's been one I had my first like Instagram post that had like a quarter million views the other day. And it's like, it's not because of me, it's because I've got like six of our players in there doing some some crazy trending dance, and I'm just being the coach telling them to move. One of our players, Jose Gonzalez, is like, hey, we should do this one. You be the coach, and da-da-da-da-da. You post it. I said, okay. And then it just went, went crazy. I was like, oh, is that is that what we do? Is that how we do it? You know, let's do it again.

Luke 42:12

That's how we do it. Oh, good stuff. All right. Well, Coach Bart, thank you so much for hanging out with us here on the Tailgate Connect podcast. Your place for all things tailgating. We do have that easy button tailgating across the country. So check us out, tailgateconnect.com. And of course, go follow Andrew on socials, tune in on YouTube to watch all these games. I know I need to make it out to one of these games to see exactly how things go on game day for the Texas Tailgators. I'm gonna put that on my bucket list. I hope everybody else does too, even though it might take me a couple years to get on the list. But hey, gotta start somewhere, right? Thanks for tuning in. Hey, you might know a guy. You might know a guy. Excellent. Thanks, Luke. Appreciate it, man. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

We should be Tailgate connect. It's all here for you. Food drinking friends under sky so blue.