It’s 10:50 p.m. The Party Animals’ game against the Firefighters ended just over an hour ago, but Party Animals catcher Bronson “Bronny” Balholm is still at The Ballpark at America First Square in Daybreak, Utah. Still in his black uniform and his blinged-out necklaces, Balholm has swapped out his cleats for Party Animals Crocs while he talks with fans.
After every Banana Ball game, players hold meet-and-greets with fans and stay until the last one leaves. Balholm’s line is usually the longest.
Every time the line to meet him starts to get shorter that Saturday night, more fans from the sold-out game join it.
Balholm didn’t get much sleep the night before, concerned about the last two — now, three — losses to the Firefighters. He knows the Party Animals need to win to defend their championship title. But his exhaustion didn’t matter at the moment. The fans did.
He wouldn’t be here without them, he tells me.
As soon as a fan walks up to Balholm, they become his sole focus. It’s as if no one else exists. Many he’s met before — and he remembers them.
Some cry when they meet Balholm. Others introduce him to their loved ones over FaceTime. A few young women try to get a date with the Party Animal. Some bring him gifts — bracelets; a personally curated playlist; hand-bejeweled sunglasses with his name spelled out in beads; and a sketch of him hugging his dog, Buddy, which Balholm proudly shows off to me and everyone nearby.
Each gift makes its way into Balholm’s “1 Kind Act A Day” tote bag, which sits on the ground next to his feet. He keeps every gift, according to Party Animal play-by-play voice Drake Toll, who called Balholm “the epitome” of Banana Ball’s fan-first mission.
“Every night you look out at the end of a game and while the parking lot’s cleared, there’s still one distinct line of fans to meet Bronson Balholm,” Toll said. “To forfeit his own free time to ensure that fans have a great experience is also incredibly selfless. Bronny misses postgame team celebrations and dinners just to keep fans catered to.”
Hours before, Balholm and I sat on the field together. He had been wearing his “Catch Kindness” sunglasses but took them off for the interview. Several chains — including one of St. Christopher, the patron saint of athletes — hung from his neck along with a beaded necklace spelling out “Hollywood,” his nickname.
Balholm exuded confidence and swag, but when I asked my first question, he got emotional.
In 2021, it looked like Balholm’s dream might have been over. After playing four seasons of Division III baseball at Beloit College, he thought, “This couldn’t be the end.”
He was right. He played two more seasons at Arizona State University, his dream school, while he earned a second degree in aerospace engineering. Again, he thought, “This can’t be it.”
And again, he was right.
Now, three years later, Balholm travels the country and plays in sold-out MLB and college football stadiums in front of thousands of fans who have fallen in love with Banana Ball, the fast-paced baseball alternative infused with music, dancing and trick plays.
Banana Ball kept Balholm’s dream alive and gave him a platform to share his “Catch Kindness” mission and his faith as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“It was unbelievable the way that my path the Lord has paved for me to be here in Banana Ball,” Balholm said. “ … I was told a lot of times in my life I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t keep playing, and I’m still here.”
Welcome to Banana Ball, Hollywood
Minutes after the Party Animals fall again to the Firefighters 6-4, Balholm chats with his dad.
Neil Balholm, who was a wide receiver at BYU, tells his son he moved toward home plate during the game to get a closer view of him in action. While he had no notes for him, he said that Balholm’s mom likely would.
Balholm got his speed from his dad. He used the training program Neil learned from a former BYU women’s track and field coach.
But he inherited his love of baseball and catching from his mom.
Cathleen was a catcher herself “in the time and age where women weren’t allowed to play baseball,” Balholm said.
She followed in the footsteps of her father — a former catcher in the Chicago Cubs organization, a World War II veteran and a Secret Service agent — and played on her high school baseball team. At ASU, she played on an intramural team and was also the Division I team’s bat girl.
“She’s always been coaching me,” Balholm said. “She’s always been there.”
Prior to each game, Balholm prays for both his mother and grandfather.
“I know I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my mom and for my grandpa, for sure,” he said.
In 2023, Balholm was playing summer ball with the Solano Mudcats. He had just played his final season at ASU, but he didn’t believe his baseball career was over. Neither did his parents.
Cathleen suggested her son look into Banana Ball. He had seen the Savannah Bananas and Party Animals on TikTok during the COVID-19 pandemic and “was infatuated immediately,” he said.
So Balholm submitted the player questionnaire. It wasn’t long before he got a call asking if he could play a game for the Party Animals when they were in Sacramento, not far from Solano.
Excited for the opportunity, he showed up three hours early and completed “a full warmup routine” two hours before the players’ bus pulled up.
The trick plays and dancing that Banana Ball is known for made Balholm “feel like a kid again.”
While practicing, he missed a ball he was trying to cross under his legs, but instead of picking on the newbie, the players gave him a verbal pat on the back and tips to nail it next time.
“It was amazing to see just so many people in a community of warmth and kindness and encouraging, letting you know, ‘It’s OK to fail out here. We’re having fun. That’s what this is all about. Life is about having fun, smiling, enjoying it,’” he said.
The Bananas invited Balholm to play a few more games with them later that year in Milwaukee. That led to an offer in the offseason to play for the Party Animals full time.
Believing again
It’s three hours before the first pitch. Banana Ball Backstage, a VIP experience for fans, has begun. Balholm and his teammates stand between second and third base. In the slow moments between fans — which don’t last long — they play a baseball name game to pass the time.
“Matt Holliday,” one of the Party Animals says.
Balholm now has to name an MLB player whose first name starts with the letter H.
“Harmon Killebrew,” he says.
Banana Ball’s first Latter-day Saint picked a fellow Latter-day Saint who spent 22 years in the majors.
“Are you stumped over there?” he calls out to his teammates. They need to name a player whose first name begins with K. “Yeah, I think I got them stumped,” Balholm tells me.
Born in Arizona and raised in California, Balholm grew up in the Church of Jesus Christ, but in college he “kind of lost” his way and “wasn’t doing the best in my faith,” he said.
He’s ashamed to admit it, but his journey back to his faith all began with wanting a better parking spot.
If there was one player you’d consider a faith leader for the Party Animals, that’s Bronson Balholm.
— Drake Toll
The Church of Jesus Christ’s Institute of Religion building, which offers religious education classes for young adults, had the best parking on ASU’s campus. But to park there, Balholm needed a 70% attendance rate in one of the institute classes.
“I was going to institute,” Balholm said. “Was I paying attention? I don’t know, but I was there. I was present. I was signing the attendance sheet, and I was getting my parking.”
One day early in the semester, Balholm’s teacher, Brother William Blair, pulled him aside and said he wanted to get to know him.
“I didn’t go to church on Sundays a lot, and I didn’t feel like I had the Lord within me,” Balholm said. “But he was there. He was working through Brother Blair to work through me.”
The interaction came at a low point in Balholm’s life. He “laid it all out” to Blair. His playing and grades were both substandard, and he felt he didn’t fit in with his institute classmates.
“He just sat there,” Balholm said, sniffling. “He was a shoulder to cry on. My family wasn’t nearby — they were in California. I wasn’t really super close to anybody, and he was there for me. And it was unbelievable to be able to talk to him and just get it all out, and I told him how I felt. I told him I felt ashamed of myself, I feel like I (didn’t) have the Lord within me, and he told me, ‘You do, Bronson.’”
Blair reminded Balholm, “Jesus loves you.”
His journey back to his faith continued when he opened Instagram one day after an ASU loss and saw a photo of him and Bubba, a man with a developmental disability, that had been taken earlier that day. The caption of the photo read, “Shoutout to Bronson Balholm’s mother for raising an amazing son.”
The photo was taken after Balholm fulfilled the promise he made the day before to hunt down a Pac-12 baseball for Bubba, even running through the concourse in full uniform — cleats and all — to give it to him.
While reading that post, the frustration from the loss melted away, and Balholm “broke down in tears,” he said. He didn’t know what caused the tears and emotions he was feeling, so he prayed and asked God.
“He taught me right then and there that it doesn’t take a lot just to make somebody feel seen and (that) I am a good person,” he said.
He opened his scriptures and read 1 Nephi 3:7 in the Book of Mormon: “I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.”
That led him down a rabbit hole of studying the meaning of his jersey number, 41. Balholm discovered a pattern: rains flooded the earth for 40 days while Noah was on the ark, Christ fasted for 40 days, the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.
He realized that in each of those stories, the 41st day or year marked a new beginning. He took that as a lesson that when in the midst of hardship, like he had been, it’s important to remember “your 41 is coming.”
That was the moment he “really felt the Lord back in my life,” he said.
‘A faith leader for the Party Animals’
In his first year of Banana Ball, Balholm didn’t broadcast his faith, but he was more open about it last season when he started attending a Bible study group with his teammates. Now, his faith is no secret. Everyone knows the meaning of No. 41 and what the player who wears it stands for.
“If there was one player you’d consider a faith leader for the Party Animals, that’s Bronson Balholm, and that’s not just pregame or on the field,” Toll said. “It is in the locker room, it’s in the hotel, it’s at restaurants. Bronny’s always putting his faith first.”
Balholm often leads the team’s pregame prayer and is the teammate players go to with faith questions, according to Toll, who added that Balholm “wears his faith very boldly on his sleeve.”
The Lord loves you for who you are.
— Bronson Balholm
Toll has noticed that Balholm doesn’t shy away from answering all of his teammates’ questions about his faith.
“I’ve learned that the misconceptions about the church often bring up the most rogue questions, and instead of being offended, Bronny’s always been open to have tough conversations about faith and help others explore what he believes and why he has put his faith into Jesus” and his church, Toll said.
Playing in Utah sparked some locker room conversations on whether the players believed in God, but Balholm didn’t engage with the intention of converting his teammates.
“I just want to have a conversation,” he said. “‘Do you believe in God? Do you believe in a higher power?’”
To Balholm, a relationship with God is of utmost importance.
“We have each other, but when that fades away, the Lord’s going to be the last thing standing. No question about it,” he said.
His relationship with God is also where he draws his self-confidence.
“The Lord loves you for who you are,” he said. “Who cares what those other people think? He’s all that matters, and that’s the self-confidence that you need to have in this life.”
‘We’re in this together’
Balholm sits on the grass behind second base with 7-year-old Blakely while she paints his nails pink.
“This is my nail tech, Blakely,” Balholm said.
The two had met minutes prior during Banana Ball Backstage, but you wouldn’t know it. They became fast friends.
Before every game, Balholm asks a fan to paint his nails. It’s a tradition that started two years ago when he was injured and looking for ways to interact with Banana Ball fans at games.
He consulted his mom and sister, who suggested a spa day, where Balholm could bring cucumber slices, a face mask, and get a manicure and pedicure.
“Well, I’m definitely not bringing out my toes, but nails done, that’s actually a good idea,” he said.
He showed up to the next game — which happened to be in his home state of Arizona, with his mom and sister in the crowd — with cucumber slices, nail polish and face masks.
Why would you want somebody to feel alone in life? We’re in this together.
— Bronson Balholm
“I’ll never forget going out in the crowd and seeing Natalie, this young little 11-year-old with this big ol’ smile on her face and two pigtails with pink hair ties,” he said.
He complimented her on her Party Animals-pink hair.
“Hey, I need some help. Would you mind helping me do a video? I want to get my nails painted,” he asked her.
It wasn’t Balholm’s first time getting his nails painted. His mom taught him that “catchers always have some sort of light on their fingers so that pitchers can see their signs late at night.”
Following his mom’s advice, he had tried Wite-Out, but he was “scrubbing forever” to get it off. He realized nail polish was the perfect solution.
It became his pregame tradition. That time spent with a fan before the game “resets” him and reminds him of the purpose of Banana Ball.
“It just brings me back to like, no, it’s not all about winning, losing,” he said. “It’s about giving these people a good time. It’s about giving them a show, giving them something to remember, something to come back for.”
When asked if his mission to make sure no one feels alone stems from feeling alone himself, Balholm became emotional again.
“Sorry,” he said. He exhaled, trying to compose himself. “There’s been times where I’ve felt alone in life, for sure. I was saying before this, if it wasn’t for baseball, I don’t know how many friends I would have.”
Balholm wouldn’t wish loneliness upon anyone, he added. “Why would you want somebody to feel alone in life? We’re in this together. Human beings, we need each other.”
He then demonstrated how easy it is to “catch kindness.”
Pointing to my shoes, he said, “I like the shoes you’re wearing today, Krysyan.”
I thank him.
Whatever the future holds, I trust the Lord with all my heart.
— Bronson Balholm
“It’s genuine,” he said. “I love white Nike Air Force 1s, and they’re clean. I got to hand it to you. It’s tough on a baseball field to keep those things clean.”
I tell him I’ll probably have to clean them after the game, which made him laugh.
“Just noticing little small details like that can make somebody’s day, make somebody’s week,” he said, his voice starting to crack again. “Some of these fans told me it changed their life. All I ever wanted to do was make an impact.”
Nearly eight hours later, Balholm meets his last fan for the night in Daybreak, Utah. It’s 11:15 p.m. and I’ve lost count of the number of hugs he gave — he’s a hugger.
When the last fan leaves, the catcher quietly collects his tote bag and BodyArmor water from the ground. He waves goodbye to the fans visiting with each other nearby before stopping to briefly chat with me and then walk back into the ballpark. He’s the second-to-last player to leave.
If it were up to Balholm, those late nights would never end. Though he has aspirations of getting into fashion, food — he’d love to be on Food Network one day — acting and even singing, he hopes to ride the Banana Ball wave for as long as it lets him.
“I know baseball and Banana Ball will always be a part of me, for sure,” he said. “So, whatever the future holds, I trust the Lord with all my heart.”
When the day comes that he finally has to hang up his catcher’s gear for good, he hopes his Banana Ball legacy isn’t based just on what he did behind home plate.
“I hope that people would remember me as not only a person who was competitive and fiery and energetic and fun on the field, but also compassionate, loving and welcoming off the field to everyone, to anybody.”