How The Firefighters Baseball Team Thrives with Lessons from the Fire Service

The Savannah Bananas baseball league has seen its organization hitting gran slams. From over a million followers across social platforms How The Firefighters Baseball Team Thrives with Lessons from the Fire Servic selling out professional baseball stadiums to creating more teams including one team called “The Firefighters.”

The Firefighters is a team that emulates and honors the fire service while still providing fan first entertainment surrounded by the game of baseball, rather “banana ball.”

The head coach is Valerie Perez, a recently retired firefighter from the Corpus Christi, TX, Fire Department. Perez hit her 10-year mark and saw the head coaching gig as more sustainable long-term.

“Being in both different roles has helped me stay grounded and stay in a way that I can relate to players. Players to coach relationships are the same as rookie firefighters to their captains and lieutenants,” said Perez.

Mat Wolfe, an active corporal for the Oklahoma City Fire Department, plays second base, pitches and acts as the rodeo clown for The Firefighters.

Both have brought lessons from the fire service to the field and vice versa.

Adaptability

Understanding that things sometimes will not go according to the plan is crucial within Banana Ball, but also the fire service. While there is a difference between the two, there is a similar theme. 

“They are creative thinkers that think on the fly, which is a little bit different than what we do in the fire service, because we try to pre-plan as much as we can,” said Wolfe. “I’ve brought the ability to be a little more flexible from banana ball to the fire service. You must have the ability to adapt. That’s something that you have a little bit of experience having to do in the fire service, but it looks a whole different way on the baseball field.”

Camaraderie

Developing team chemistry is pivotal to all sports teams. There is an aligned persepctive when it comes to building relationships with people that work in the same department. When you are on a call, you need to know what others are doing to be able to move as fluently as possible.

“As far as similarities from the fire department, it's just a way that we're hanging out with your buddies at the station, you're doing your daily duties, and then the tones go off, you got to go. That's the same way, obviously different, reasons why you must go,” said Perez.

“Being on a team is similar, you have a role and a goal to accomplish,” said Wolfe.

Having those relationships and continually working on them can make the job a lot more bearable when things get hard. 

“You can't take yourself too seriously. It's so important to be able to laugh, joke and have a good time," said Perez. "With the fire service, there's a ton of the probing and joking around with each other when you're just messing around the station. Learning to take things a little lighter really helps whenever we had serious calls that were heartbreaking situations. The ability to come back to the station, regroup, stay light and focus on positive is something that we try and focus on. Being able to bring that over to the fire service was helpful."

Short memory

“The first thing that comes to mind is, in Banana Land, one of our 11 principles is, do for one fan what you wish you can do for many," said Perez. "Going back to the fire service, when we had certain calls, and I'm responding to these people who whether it be the actual patient or their family, it made me be that much more intentional with each patient. It's easy to lose focus on being intentional with that specific family and that specific patient. So, my mindset of doing for one what you wish you could do for many really helped.” 

Across most sports, you can't dwell on the past. There needs to be a sense of short-term memory to be able to bring your mind back to the start. Perez notes that she was able to take that back to the department to be able to reset and be the best that you can be.

“When we come to the field and you just had an at bat, and didn't do very well, you must flip that switch and be ready to make sure you're turning it on in a way of providing an incredible experience to the fans," said Perez. "Traditionally in baseball, you don't want to take your last at bat into the field, because the ball will find you, and if your mind is not right, there's a good chance you're going to make an error on that play. Same thing here, the fact that we must wash our mistakes so quickly, just to make sure that we're being the best we can for our fans really helps our guys on the baseball side of things as well."

When you think about sports and the fire service, the number one thing that pops into people’s mind is the team aspect of things. However, these two have brought that and more between a job where your life can be on the line and the baseball diamond.