Vineland native helps drive Savannah Bananas’ national baseball craze

Mark “Shark” Ediss, who grew up in Vineland, is part of the force behind the Savannah Bananas’ rise from a strange baseball experiment to one of the sport’s biggest live attractions. The club identifies Ediss as its legendary public address announcer and DJ, and says he has signed a two-year contract to return for the next two seasons.

The Bananas built Banana Ball around a simple premise: make baseball faster, more entertaining and more fun. That formula has carried far beyond Savannah, where the organization now fields six independent professional teams in the Banana Ball Championship League. Its home, historic Grayson Stadium, adds another layer to the brand, with the club noting that Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron and Mickey Mantle all played exhibition games there.

The scale of the demand has become part of the story. The Bananas’ official ticket page said the 2026 Banana Ball Ticket Lottery List was open until Oct. 31, 2025, and that joining the list did not affect a fan’s chance of being selected. Tickets started at $35 when bought directly through the team. The organization’s K Club offered members the chance to buy up to six tickets before the lottery list, although some games could sell out before later members got access. With 86 games scheduled this year, the club’s reach has moved well beyond novelty and into the middle of mainstream sports entertainment.

For Cumberland County, Ediss’s path carries a hometown weight. The nickname Shark came from a program director at his first radio job in Louisiana, a detail that fits a career built around voice, timing and crowd connection. He later left a broadcasting job in Brunswick, Georgia, to work full time with the Bananas beginning Jan. 1, a move that shows how closely his skills matched the team’s fan-first approach.

Ediss is not the face on the field, but Vineland can claim a different kind of national impact here: a local name helping shape a sports brand that sells out stadiums, draws lottery-only ticket demand and keeps South Jersey in the national conversation.