Banana Ball’s Indianapolis Clowns continues its inaugural season with high-level athleticism and TikTok dances. It’s one of the latest teams to join the now multimillion-dollar sport that’s grown in popularity since it launched in 2020.
But these aren’t the city’s first Indianapolis Clowns. The original team was part of the Negro Leagues and has a complicated history. How that history is preserved and presented to a new generation also complicates the next chapter for the Clowns.
Risk and reward
Banana Ball creator and owner Jesse Cole said the original Indianapolis Clowns are an inspiration for the performance-slash-sport.
“They [the Clowns] changed the game,” Cole said. “They made baseball about more than who wins and loses. They made it about the entertainment — the fun, the jokes, the pranks. When I heard the story about the Indianapolis Clowns at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, I was so inspired.”
The first team in the franchise that would become the Clowns played in Miami Florida in the 1930s. The Miami Giants were entertainers first, baseball was second. The comedy drew larger audiences.
They later rebranded to the Ethiopian Clowns and hit the road as barnstormers — where they blended more serious baseball and Vaudeville-style comedy in rural locations. The term “barnstorming” is borrowed from pilots who, after World War One, traveled to farms and towns to spread excitement about flying by performing stunts with planes.
The franchise then moved north, became the Cincinnati Clowns and joined the Negro Leagues. It settled in Indianapolis in the mid-40s and played until the late 1980s.
Leslie Etienne is an associate professor of Africana Studies at Indiana University Indianapolis and the Executive Director of the Center for Africana Studies and Culture. He said fans should observe more of the history than the jokes. Players risked a lot barnstorming all over the country in the 20s and 30s, especially in the south.
“These are places where people are being lynched, right. There's just a lot you have to unpack. What was that community like in that area? What was the, what was the reason why you went there? Who were you going there to entertain?,” Etienne said.
Etienne said the players had several reasons to barnstorm. It supplemented incomes. It was an opportunity to be scouted. And it gave some fans their only access to baseball — including many Black fans who lived under Jim Crow laws.
Controversy from the beginning
The original Indianapolis Clowns included baseball greats like Hank Aaron, Satchel Paige and the first professional female player Toni Stone. But Indianapolis Recorder Sports Reporter Noral Parham said many at the time looked down on the team — not only white baseball fans and baseball purists, but also people in Indianapolis’ Black community, including in the Black press.
Parham said many criticized the team for not being serious enough about America’s pastime and thought that harmed the Civil Rights Movement. He said people glossed over the team’s baseball aptitude.
“Oh, Clowns, oh, white face, they're having fun, they're dancing, they've got Satchel Paige out there sitting in a rocking chair,” Parham said. “If we put more of a serious annotation on things, and actually appreciate the history and the doors they've opened [and] what they've done for the city and what they still mean to the city.”
Parham said some people make the same mistake today.
“It wasn't a minstrel show, it was a master class. I think that's the big part [of it],” Parham said. “[The Clowns] were damn serious, so I don't want the next generation to forget that.”
Correlle Prime plays first base for today’s Banana Ball Indianapolis Clowns. He says that as a Black player whose family is from the South he’s fully immersed in conversations about race and racism.
He sees the team as an opportunity to highlight something good in a lot of bad.
“There is a sentimental aspect to this franchise and what we’re bringing to light. And it is uncomfortable for a lot of people — Black people, white people, there’s a lot of uncomfortable conversations that people don’t particularly want to have,” Prime said. “A lot of these problems exist in different ways today. So we just want to spread joy and bring people together.”
He says the team has spent time with original Clowns players, to listen, learn their perspectives and try to get the history right. The team also plays a video before each game that features the original players.
"'Hey, I was inspired by this.' Okay, but like, but how much?"
For his part, IU Indianapolis' Etienne said it’s not the reclamation of the name that’s an issue, but who is reclaiming, and what parts of the story are being told and which are being left out.
“I mean, it's almost like certain types of foods that were once things that poor people ate. Now you gotta pay 50 bucks for a small plate of it, right? So there's that aspect to it,” Etienne said. “I wouldn't say to anyone, ‘You shouldn't be annoyed by it.’ You could say [to someone who said] ‘Hey, I was inspired by this.’ Okay, but like, but how much?”
Indianapolis Indians board member Milton Thompson was in favor of Banana Ball rebooting the Indianapolis Clowns name. He's a sports attorney in Indianapolis and a former baseball player and said it starts conversations about the original team and financially it was a no-brainer.
“I think there's more interest in entertainment and baseball, and it's just the name. It's just the name, and it's a historical name, and it resonates,” Thompson said.
Thompson met Hank Aaron before he died and talked with him about the Clowns. He said Aaron appreciated playing with the team for a brief time in 1952 because it was a chance for him to play in front of people. He said "Hammerin' Hank" also felt disrespected because he didn't think younger players knew the history.
“Hank was like, these guys don't even, they don't know what we went through. Muhammad Ali, he wins an Olympic medal, and goes back to Louisville, and they won't even let him eat there — in his own cafe, in his own town,” Thompson said.
As a sports reporter Parham has covered the Banana Ball Indianapolis Clowns, and he said he's worried many fans are not learning the full history.
“It's almost like when a movie, a really good movie, is remade. Now we know that there's going to be a whole generation of new viewers, new fans, in this case — they don't know the history, they haven't seen the original,” Parham said. “You can't fault them for it, but I think we might have to put that on the businesses, the brands [and] the stakeholders.”
Contact WFYI Morning Edition newscaster and reporter Barbara Anguiano at banguiano@wfyi.org
