'Full-circle moment': Party Animals pitcher enjoys homecoming in Albuquerque

As a Little Leaguer, Drew Gillespie was among the children invited to come on the field of the Albuquerque Isotopes to walk in the shoes of professional ball players.

Now 28 — and still a kid, just bigger — he’s playing on that same diamond in front of sold-out crowds.

Gillespie, who grew up in Albuquerque, pitches for the Party Animals, opponent of the social media superstar team known as the Savannah Bananas — a traveling, cartwheeling baseball team comparable to the Harlem Globetrotters that made a two-game stop in Albuquerque this weekend.

“Getting to come back here — that full-circle moment — it’s special,” Gillespie told the Journal. “To be able to do it in front of friends and family is even more special.”

Albuquerque welcomed Gillespie — and the Bananas — warmly, selling out both games at Isotopes Park and showing up in force, filling the stands the moment gates to the ballpark opened.

“We’ve never seen the stadium this full,” said Maria Ouellette, who, along with her daughter Caris, attended the game, wearing blue cowboy hats with the Bananas team logo she said they made.

Through all the teams’ pregame antics, and through the full game, the crowd was deafening. They sang along with the team band when it played music. They danced along with baseball players at every opportunity. Many wore banana hats, or any banana-themed shirts they may have had in their closets.

Those who could fit in them — children, oftentimes — even wore full banana costumes.

The teams’ routines are anything but, well, routine — players blend traditional baseball with trick plays and comedic skits. For one play, they’ll field ground balls as any professional team would. For the next, they’ll pass a fielded ball back and forth like a hot potato, turning a routine 6-4-3 double play into something much more ridiculous.

Caris, a fourth grader at Annunciation Catholic School, appreciated the mass appeal of the teams’ performance.

“They’re funny,” she told the Journal. “... Their dance moves are where grownups will like them, but it’s also (where) kids would like them.”

In the bottom of the eighth, Jackson Olson of the Bananas fouled a pitch down the third base line. Brad Otero, a fan who was born and raised in Albuquerque, clocked the ball barreling toward him and stuck out his hand.

“(It) hit straight on my hand. Didn’t even feel the pain,” he told the Journal. “I caught it, and I didn’t even drop.”

The catch, which counts as an out in Banana Ball, prompted the Party Animals to rush the stands and pull him onto the field in celebration.

“It was so much fun,” Otero said.

Homecoming

Gillespie entered the game as a relief pitcher at the bottom of the seventh inning, escorted by a small, but fully functional, hot air balloon.

The crowd roared at his arrival.

His first out, a come-backer to the mound, he fielded himself, tossing the ball behind his back to the first baseman. The second out was fairly routine. For the third out, the batter hit the ball well to center field, where the outfielder caught it behind his back.

The Party Animals went on to win the game 3-2.

Despite his seventh-inning antics, Gillespie wasn’t always a trick baseball player.

As a teenager, he pitched for Sandia High School, and then for the UNM Lobos before finishing his collegiate career with Southeastern University in Florida.

“If you had asked me years ago if he would do something like that. I would have said ‘No, he’s too serious about baseball to get that in,’ ” said Jo Ann Walton, Gillespie’s grandmother, who watched her grandson’s return to his hometown from the stands. “... But he has really bloomed there. It’s like he was meant to do it.”

Gillespie said he’s reveled in being back in his hometown. On Friday, his father had the rest of the Party Animals over for dinner, serving them stuffed sopaipillas.

“It’s nice to go from Savannah, which is my new home, to this home, so it doesn’t feel like I’m on the road yet,” Gillespie said. “... Home-cooked meals, Sadie’s salsa, stuffed sopaipillas, and I’ll be alright.”

Photos: Party animals defeat Savannah Bananas on their last day in Albuquerque