Drayage Brokersin Savannah, GA

(FOX40.COM) — The Savannah Bananas are bringing back their “World Famous Baseball Circus” to Sutter Health Park this weekend.

The Bananas, based in Savannah, Georgia, will play their rivals, the Party Animals, during a three-day stop at the West Sacramento ballpark on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. All three games are sold out, according to the Bananas’ website. •Video Above: West Sacramento welcomes the Savannah Bananas with sold-out crowd (from July 2023)

Each game is scheduled for a 7 p.m. first pitch.

West Sacramento is the final California stop on the 2024 tour. The Bananas had a tour stop in Fresno for a three-game series on May 3-5.

The Bananas, who mostly play exhibition games, have gained a massive social media following due to their style of play called “Banana Ball” and on-field hijinks.

West Sacramento is one of 29 locations across the country during their 2024 Banana Ball World Tour.

In July 2023, the Bananas played in front of a sold-out crowd at Sutter Health Park in a game that featured former MLB players Hunter Pence, Josh Reddick and Eric Byrnes.

Former MLB players Jake Peavy, Johnny Damon, and Barry Zito played with the Bananas in the 2023 tour. WWE legend and Actor John Cena made a surprise appearance for the Bananas during their current 2024 tour.

“We are thrilled to be able to offer the Sacramento community the opportunity to capture the energy and excitement of the Savannah Bananas right here at Sutter Health Park for the second year in a row,” Sacramento River Cats Vice President of Facilities and Events Brittney Nizuk said in a statement. “This will again be one of those moments we’re able to create treasured memories at the ballpark.

River Cats holding commemorative 25th anniversary parade

What is Banana Ball?

Banana Ball is a “fast-paced, action-packed style of baseball” that involves no bunting, a two-hour time limit, fans catching foul balls for outs, batters stealing first base, and a one-on-one tiebreaker showdown if the score is tied at the end of the game.

Other than the fast-paced style of play, the Bananas are known for having a cast of characters at their games including a player on stilts, dancers, performers, mascots, and musicians.

The business community including WJCL came out to show its support Monday for an organization whose role it is to shape the lives of children by taking part in the Frank Callen Boys and Girls Club golf outing.

They were teeing off Monday morning at the Savannah Golf Club, all with an eye on the future.

32 teams and over 140 players hitting the links for the Frank Callen Boys and Girls Club golf outing with proceeds going to the organization.

“It’s so rewarding to see so many people come out and support what we do down at the Boys and Girls Club," said John Brooks, board chairman, Frank Callen Boys and Girls Club. "We continue to give in over 107 years now. We've given hope and opportunity to a lot of kids. Some of those kids really didn't need as much, but some of those kids really need us most in their lives.”

WJCL was proud to be one of those sponsors, with familiar faces hitting the links, like Greg Coy, Amy Zimmer, Frank Sulkowski and meteorologist Jonathan Myers who nearly had a hole-in-one.

But there were other sponsors as well.

“It's so important for our community to have children raised with great values, great work ethics," Ken Nugent of Ken Nugent Law Firm. "And the Boys Club here does an incredible job of doing that. So we're always happy to support it.”

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Fundraisers like this golf tournament are so vitally important to the Frank Callen Boys and Girls Club for its day-to-day operations and to be able to do what it does for Savannah area youths.

“We're a nonprofit and we're coming into the summer, which is our most expensive time," said Mark Lindsay, CEO of Frank Callen Boys and Girls Club. "We'll have the kids at the club from 8 a.m. until 5 in the evening doing programming. This helps to pay for the programming that we do at the club. Some of the sports that we do at the club and that youth development staff that we have to bring in to watch the kids at the club.”

With all the slots in the tournament sold out again. The Frank Callen Boys and Girls Club was hoping to raise around $50,000 for the tournament.

Slutty Vegan’s very own Pinky Cole Hayes is giving back to Savannah State graduates in a big way., offering them a $8.75 million “Entrepreneurial Starter Pack.”

Cole Hayes announced the sizable gift to the class of 2024 as this year’s commencement speaker. Each graduate will receive $25,000 worth of entrepreneurial resources. The restauranteur partnered with Operation Hope and One Million Black Businesses (1MBB) to do so.

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Each new alum of Savannah State will receive a membership to 1MBB for financial guidance, small business and money management training courses, and a 3-month Shopify subscription.

“I am passionate about lifting up the next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs of our world. I know firsthand what it means to have mentorship and how someone believing in your dream can make a difference,” Cole Hayes said in a statement. “This graduating class has experienced so much adversity. Their college years began with a global pandemic and they have had to navigate their lives through unprecedented events. Through it all, they have thrived and are ready to enter the ‘real world’ with more experience and the confidence to face life’s new challenges. I believe in these graduates, and I hope that this gift will help them as they transition into this next phase of their lives.”

Cole Hayes is known for her vegan delicacies and philanthropic endeavors, also supporting Clark Atlanta University’s class of 2022 on their business journeys. More recently, she sponsored the prom for Atlanta’s Benjamin E. Mays High School for all to attend for free.

Following these measures, her collaboration with Operation Hope and 1MBB will grant aspiring Black entrepreneurs greater opportunities to thrive. Moreover, John Hope Bryant, founder of Operation Hope, praised Cole Hayes for her continued dedication to her community.

“Pinky Cole Hayes is a living example of what happens when a brilliant idea meets opportunity,” Hope Bryant said. “With 1MBB, we want to offer opportunities to as many brilliant ideas as we can reach and are excited to partner with Pinky to help lift up the next generation of Black entrepreneurial excellence.”

This story was updated May 6 at 6:01 p.m. EST with details about the squadron the aircraft is assigned to and a comment from the leader of the Air Dominance Center.

The Air Force is investigating the cause of a mishap involving an F-22 Raptor during an Air National Guard fighter exercise Monday.

The pilot was not injured in the mishap, which occurred around 11:30 a.m. local time at Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport in Georgia, according to the 165th Airlift Wing, which hosts Savannah Sentry, a counterair exercise for fourth- and fifth-generation fighter jets from across the Air National Guard.

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An F-16 assigned to Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, crashed around 11:50 a.m. local time on Tuesday.

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The aircraft is assigned to the 71st Fighter Squadron at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia. Additional details about the incident and the status of the aircraft’s damage was not available Monday evening.

“Thank you to all the first responders who arrived on scene,” Col. Stephen Thomas, commander of the Air Dominance Center at Savannah Air National Guard Base, Georgia, said in a statement. “Sentry Savannah is all about showcasing readiness and today’s mishap affirmed our airmen’s ability to respond at a moment’s notice.”

Sentry Savannah will continue as scheduled, with no impacts to future flying operations, the 165th Airlift Wing said.

The mishap is the second to occur in the last week. On April 30, an F-16 Fighting Falcon assigned to the 49th Wing crashed outside of Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. The pilot in that crash received minor injuries and was treated and released from a medical facility the same day.

Designed to take down other aircraft, the Raptor is a single-seat supersonic fighter that joined the service in 2005. It relies on stealth technology, sophisticated maneuvers can carry as many as eight short- and medium-range air-to-air missiles.

The F-22 Raptor fighter led manned aircraft in the Air Force’s most serious noncombat mishaps at nine accidents in fiscal year 2023, according to an analysis of Air Force Safety Center data obtained by Air Force Times. Six of those incidents involved flight operations, including a bird strike that forced an emergency landing and other mishaps that bent blades on an engine and other engine troubles. Another three incidents included mishaps during maintenance, including two while the aircraft were being towed.

Class B incidents involved between $600,000 and $2.5 million in damages, a permanent partial disability, inpatient hospitalization of three or more personnel, or a combination of those factors.

On average, 3 1/2 F-22s have been involved in Class B incidents annually during the past decade, according the latest available data compiled by the Air Force Safety Center in 2021.

The service owns a total 185 Raptors, an inventory it has proposed reducing to 153 in its fiscal year 2025 budget proposal.

The dining scene in this charming Southern city is heating up.

I arrived at Late Air in the last minutes of a Friday night “apero hour” and ordered a fizzy bianco vermouth-pét nat cocktail and a plate of pickled Georgia shrimp. Next, the bartender poured me a glass of sparkling Chardonnay from Beaujolais to go with a tangle of green beans, peanuts, and crunchy tofu. With its quirky menu and new-to-me bottles, the natural wine bar reminded me of my favorite spots in New York, Mexico City, and Paris. But I was snacking and sipping in Savannah, the Spanish moss-draped town of 150,000 in coastal Georgia.

Growing up, Savannah was the closest thing I had to a big city. I lived 95 country miles away, and every few months, my mom would load us into our minivan and drive to Savannah to shop. We’d eat lunch at Spanky’s, a restaurant that claims to have invented the chicken finger, or at a chain restaurant near the mall. Occasionally, we went downtown for a cheeseburger at the old-school Crystal Beer Parlor. But meals were mostly incidental.

Indeed, no one would have considered Savannah a food destination until a decade ago, things started to change, with investment in the city’s downtown — and with the 2014 arrival of game-changing restaurant The Grey. Mashama Bailey and John O. Morisano opened The Grey in an art deco Greyhound bus station, and ever since the restaurant’s progressive Southern cooking has drawn travelers, locals, national press, and cooks to Savannah. That slow river of transformation became a flood during the pandemic, when Savannah’s less-restrictive COVID policies and warm weather fueled a boom in tourism. Now, the Hostess City can count a destination-worthy restaurant and bar scene to its many charms — contemporary art, historic architecture, oak-lined squares, and liberal open container laws, among them.

On my most recent visit, in walking distance of Forsyth Park, some of the city’s most picturesque acres, I polished off a bowl of bucatini bolstered with umami-rich sardines and anchovies at Saint Bibiana, a modern Italian restaurant opened by recent transplant Derek Simcik. Down the street, I scoped out Strangebird, a Southern-meets-Mexican barbecue joint inside a renovated Streamliner diner where chefs Daniel “Nilo” Aranza and Felipe Vera engineer a delightfully sloppy birria burger and salsa macha-topped refried butter beans. Strangebird is the latest restaurant from restaurateur Brandon Carter, who has opened three restaurants in Savannah since 2021. The others are Common Thread, a fine-dining spot set in a Victorian mansion, and Wildflower Cafe at the Jepson Center, a contemporary art museum.

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Yes, tourists still line up for pizza slices at Vinnie Van GoGo’s and legendary fried chicken lunches at Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House, but these mainstays don’t offer the town’s only pizza and chicken worth waiting for. At Vittoria Pizzeria, Kyle Jacovino sells blistered Neopolitan-ish pies made with naturally leavened dough; I savored one of his farmers market pizzas topped with merguez bolognese, ramps, and morels. Jacovino arrived in town the same year that The Grey opened, as chef of Hugh Acheson’s short-lived The Florence, and decided to stay. “It’s a cool town. It’s not hyper stressful. It’s affordable to live in and raise a family,” he says.

Around the corner, at Brochu’s Family Tradition, I tucked into their whole chicken dinner, a tray packed with fried thighs brined in chamomile tea, charred breast, chicken salad, biscuits and gravy, with housemade sunchoke hot sauce and pickles. Chef Andrew Brochu had originally planned on opening his Southern-inflected concept in Chicago, where he had worked at Alinea and Roister. The pandemic squashed that dream, and he started over in Savannah, where his wife Sophie grew up. “It took COVID to make us say, ‘Let’s go down South and see what’s going on,’” says Brochu. “I found the space here, and we just bought a home.”

Todd Harris, another Chicago transplant, moved to Savannah in 2021 and took over the kitchen at Garage at Victory North, a favorite late-night hangout spot, the following year. “Savannah was attractive because Mashama was here,” he says. At Garage at Victory North, Harris celebrates Southern ingredients, including okra he grows in a backyard garden and collard greens he dresses up into a Caesar salad, and weaves one of the Lowcountry’s most iconic dishes, red rice, into a creamy, must-order risotto.

The juxtaposition of old and new is what makes Savannah exciting right now for diners — and chefs. The city has always had a wealth of history and culture to share, but now there’s a deeper bench of hospitality talent to tell its stories on the plate.

On my last night in town, a Monday, I popped into Over Yonder, a honky tonk bar and industry hangout. I expected the place to be empty but had to elbow my way to the bar to order a cheeseburger and ranch water. Across the room, I spotted Ryan Landers, the bartender who’d poured my wine at Late Air a few days before. Brandon Carter and his culinary team were there too. We may have shared a few tequila shots. “I love the energy of this city,” said Carter, as we raised our glasses to Savannah.

Where to eat in Savannah

Chef Andrew Brochu traded Michelin trappings for a fun, no-frills restaurant in the artsy Starland District neighborhood. Pull up to the bar at Brochu's for grilled oysters and a piña colada slushie.

At this bar, restaurant, and late-night hangout in Starland District, start with a classic cocktail, and build a meal around Savannah red rice, oxtail, and buttermilk fried chicken.

At Brandon Carter’s debut Savannah restaurant, Common Thread, you’ll dine in a lovingly restored Victorian home and eat the region’s best produce tucked into okonomiyaki, fermented into kimchi, sidled next to Georgia beef, and drizzled with huancaina sauce.

Expect to sit next to a sweet tea–sipping local at this Southern-meets-Mexican barbecue joint, where birria burgers, shrimp burritos, and barbacoa tacos reign supreme.

This modern Italian restaurant from chef Derek Simcik, a recent transplant, anchors the new Hotel Bardo. Every dish at Saint Bibiana — even the burrata and the grilled branzino — has nuance and intrigue layered in.

Grab a falafel or sabich pita, and head to Forsyth Park for a picnic, or enjoy a saucy shakshuka at fast-casual Israeli newcomer Shuk.

Kyle Jacovino’s pizzeria anchors the Starland Yard food truck park. Order a beer nearby while you wait for an ideal Margherita or a cheffy market pie.

Former New Yorkers, chefs Christopher Meenan and Ericka Phillips opened this all-day café and market, dedicated to Phillips’ great-grandmother. Stop in Dottie's for a towering shrimp po’boy while shopping on Broughton.

Where to drink in Savannah

After living in New York, Los Angeles, Nashville, and Virginia Beach, Madeline Ott and Colin Breland chose Savannah for their natural-wine bar Late Air. The couple has introduced 50 bottles to the state since opening.

Jane Fishel has owned bars in Savannah since 2012, and her airy downtown spot, Savory Society, touts advanced bartending — there are amaros, infusions, and cheese in cocktails — without attitude.

You have to walk through Moodright’s, a bar and duckpin bowling alley, to reach this late-night hot spot. Locals love the double-stacked smash burgers and Georgia-brewed Creature Comforts beer at Over Yonder.

Where to stay in Savannah

At the intimate, art-filled Perry Lane Hotel, guests are greeted with Cava and can mosey to the first-floor bar, The Wayward, for complimentary happy-hour cocktails. Chef Daniel Herget left a plum post in South Beach to lead the hotel’s restaurant, The Emporium Kitchen and Wine Market. Rooms from $309

This historic power plant–turned–hotel holds a concert venue and a serious collection of gemstones, geodes, and fossils. Watch cargo ships steer in and out of the city’s busy port while you slurp oysters at District Seafood, one of 11 restaurants and bars on-site. Rooms from $299

Art curated by local gallerist Susan Laney fills the lobby of this hotel near River Street’s eastern edge. From the hotel, you can snag a breakfast sandwich at Stevedore Bakery before strolling along the Savannah River or sipping a culinary cocktail at rooftop Bar Julian. Rooms from $269