While the Savannah Bananas took the baseball world by storm a few summers ago, in 2024, they are continuing to make headlines, this time for the women entering and impacting their game.

Jocelyn Alo and Valerie Perez, two women involved in MLB Develops and for Team USA in softball and baseball, have burst onto the scene in one of the most fun-filled baseball atmospheres found anywhere in the world.

Alo, the NCAA softball all-time home run leader, started competing in her first AUX season, a shortened version of the Athletes Unlimited, a professional softball league, on Monday. Her accolades speak for themselves -- All-American, two-time USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year, 2022 Honda Sports Award Winner in softball, 2022 ESPY Award Winner for Best College Athlete, Women’s Sports -- the list goes on.

But Alo isn’t just focused on her playing career -- she is focused on growing the game, being a role model for young girls, and proving women can be in male-dominated spaces. Earlier this spring, she became the first woman to sign with the Bananas, inking a one-month contract. After making a guest plate appearance in 2023 in Oklahoma City, the home of the Women’s College World Series, she received a call that fall from the Bananas saying they were looking for women who could play baseball.

After checking that it worked within her professional playing schedule -- playing AUX right now, competing for a second season with OKC Spark (a Women’s Pro Fastpitch team) later this summer, and then playing with Team USA for the Japan All-Star Series (July 4-8) -- she said yes.

“I had the best month of my life,” Alo said. “It was so good in every aspect -- I enjoyed playing. I enjoyed the fans. I enjoyed learning every dance and just being out there with the guys and competing in a different aspect I thought was really cool.”

While she enjoyed the entire experience, including notching her first base hit, the golden batter walk-off hit (once per game, a team can send any hitter in the lineup to bat in any spot) in her final at-bat of her month-long Banana Ball stay will be an especially special moment. But she wasn’t exactly laser focused like you would normally see her -- in fact, she wasn’t even in her team’s dugout.

“Everyone’s looking for me -- they’re like, ‘We need you for the golden batter,’” she said. “I was actually in the Party Animals dugout talking to my friends over there. They were like, ‘We need Jocelyn.’ So I was rushing -- I wasn’t really locked in and then I had to quickly flip that switch. As soon as I touched first base, I gave a kind of ‘hooray’ and then my teammates came and they mobbed me and we were just all jumping for joy.”

Another addition to Banana Ball is Perez, who recently became the manager for the Firefighters. Perez, who was selected for Team USA for the Baseball Women’s World Cup team last year and will compete in the finals later this summer, has been an example for young girls wanting to play baseball.

“Everybody who I’ve been around in the baseball world since joining Team USA, everybody there is about the growth of the next generation,” Perez said. “So many of us didn’t have these opportunities that they have at a young age, so being able to be a part of giving that opportunity to the youth, especially for the national team, is something we don’t take for granted.”

Perez, who has been serving as a real firefighter for nine years, found her two worlds coming together when the opportunity, as she put it, “came out of left field” to try out for the new team. Her firefighter schedule (24 hours on, 48 hours off) happened to work itself out for her to take the trip from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Arlington for the tryout.

Now she has become part of a new family, committed to bringing honor to the fire service through the sport of baseball.

Inaugural Opening Day for the Firefighter team took place at the end of May. While this might be their first season, Perez, who praised the team for how family-oriented Banana Ball is, has plenty of goals for her squad’s 2024 campaign.

“Some of the goals would be building the brand of firefighters ... fans first goal to provide an incredible experience,” she said.