![\"Corey](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CTC-L-chicago-snowballs003.jpg\")
Corey Bell practices his standing backflip during the first team practice for the new Chicago Snowballs baseball team on Feb. 17, 2026, at The Dome at the Parkway Bank Sports Complex in Rosemont. (Chris Sweda\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n
Sportstainment has its own storied history in Chicago \u2014 it\u2019s where the Harlem Globetrotters were founded<\/a> a century ago. When the now world-touring exhibition basketball troupe was still a novelty, they\u2019d train regularly in the old YMCA building<\/a> on South Wabash in Bronzeville.<\/p>\n Add in the city\u2019s fierce baseball fandom and affinity for hijinks \u2014 let\u2019s not forget the cheese grater hats that flew off the shelves<\/a> in the Bears\u2019 postseason \u2014 and where else but Chicago to launch the latest in sports revelry.<\/p>\n The Snowballs, who brand themselves as the nation\u2019s first pro coed baseball program of its kind, are ready to take up the mantle, and they\u2019re having a grand ol\u2019 time getting there. At their first practice earlier this month, players warmed up with figuring out the intricacies of building a human pyramid, then went straight into dance rehearsal.<\/p>\n \u201cFive, six \u2026 five, six, seven, eight \u2014 we are the Snowballs!\u201d they chanted, clapping in time with the beat.<\/p>\n \u2018A joy I\u2019ve never felt before\u2019<\/p>\n Starting a sportstainment baseball team wasn\u2019t something Travis had planned. For more than 20 years, the Illinois native has worked as an attorney. But she\u2019s always been a sports fan and last year, when she heard Savannah Bananas owner Jesse Cole in an interview speaking about plans to expand Banana Ball, she realized: Chicago needs something like this.<\/p>\n Almost immediately, Travis \u2014 whose official title, she quipped, is queen of the Snowballs \u2014 started calling baseball coaches and stadiums, and devising how to recruit local players who posed the perfect mix between athlete and that certain something extra that would set them apart (the outfielder who juggles, for instance, or a shortstop who doubles as a bona fide songbird).<\/p>\n The Snowballs put out an open call for applicants late last year.<\/p>\n \u201cGet paid to play baseball?\u201d the ad read. \u201cYES!\u201d<\/p>\n More than 650 people from across the country started the application process, with some 300 seeing it through to the end. Ultimately, 100 prospects were invited to a week of tryouts in January. They danced, they sang, they jumped. And they played ball. Though tasked with proving they were Snowball material, the players ended tryouts not so much fighting for that competitive edge but bantering like they\u2019d just spent three weeks at summer camp together.<\/p>\n They auditioned with the kind of carefree fervor that comes with doing something simply because you love doing it \u2014 and it was infectious. That\u2019s when Travis and her team knew they were onto something.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first night \u2026 of tryouts, when I came home my husband asked, \u2018How was it?\u2019\u201d Snowballs project manager Kristen Adamiak recalled. \u201cAnd I said, \u2018I have no words.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Adamiak remembered growing up going to annual baseball games in the city with her uncle. She went into health care administration as she got older, but her love of baseball never faded. Last year, in the early stages of her Snowball campaign, Travis called Adamiak \u2014 who she\u2019d worked with previously \u2014 and floated her idea. Adamiak said she was in.<\/p>\n Adamiak wound up quitting her job. She\u2019s now a Snowball full time.<\/p>\n That first day she saw the team take shape, it was everything she wanted it to be.<\/p>\n \u201cPlus more,\u201d she went on, \u201cwith fireworks and all the razzle-dazzle. \u2026 It\u2019s a joy I\u2019ve never felt before.\u201d<\/p>\n They ultimately drafted 29 players. The roster is made up of firefighters, actors, IT managers, teachers, musicians and photographers. Players hail not just from Chicago and its suburbs, but as far as California and Florida.<\/p>\n On a recent weekday night, after clocking out of their day jobs, players huddled inside The Dome at the Parkway Bank Sports Complex in suburban Rosemont and officially started their season.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a family reunion,\u201d Travis said as players rehearsed.<\/p>\n A World Series?<\/p>\n Jonah Campbell auditioned as Willy Wonka. Really, that\u2019s what he thinks landed him on the Snowballs, even before he made it to tryouts.<\/p>\n Players, as part of the application process, had the option of sending in videos to supplement their packets. Campbell submitted a series of short clips that ranged from the 32-year-old swinging his bat at a snowball to addressing the camera mid-handstand. But it was one video, where he strolled into frame as the fictional chocolatier with a baseball cane in hand \u2014 then ducked, rolled and announced he wanted to be on the team \u2014 that clinched him his spot, Campbell ventures.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was definitely the Willy Wonka,\u201d he said at that first late-night practice a few weeks ago, his teammates playing catch behind him.<\/p>\n A self-proclaimed \u201csports kid\u201d growing up in Southern California, Campbell played baseball for the University of Pennsylvania. After graduating, though, he took a step back from the sport because of frequent injury. He went into advertising instead and lately has been trying his hand at yoga and improv.<\/p>\n It was a few co-workers who encouraged him \u2014 bullied, Campbell amended \u2014 to apply. He was pleasantly surprised when he got invited to be on the team.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of times people say just do it for the plot,\u201d he said. \u201cFor me, that\u2019s what it\u2019s like.\u201d<\/p>\n While admitting the performance side of being a Snowball is relatively new to him, Campbell was at the front of the pack as the team walked through a dance routine to the tune of LMFAO\u2019s \u201cParty Rock Anthem.\u201d Again and again, they repeated the choreography, down to the last eight count. When they at last nailed the footwork, they cheered.<\/p>\n A Snowballs practice runs the gamut from dance and tumbling to baseball and cheerleading. And they have different connoisseurs of each element on staff.<\/p>\n \u201cMan, did you see them catch on really quick?\u201d cheer coach Tonya Radcliffe said after the team had in fact mastered the human pyramid. A youth cheerleading coach for nearly 30 years, Radcliffe said she already has skills she wants the Snowballs to tackle \u2014 say, catching a baseball at the top of a toe touch.<\/p>\n But her husband, Ernest Radcliffe, a fellow Snowballs supporter and member of the team\u2019s advisory board, has even bigger aspirations for the team: One day, he envisions a playoff between them and the Bananas.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe a World Series or something,\u201d he said. \u201cWho knows?\u201d<\/p>\n More than a show<\/p>\n Snow-nana mashups aside, Ernest Radcliffe, who\u2019s spent decades mentoring youth on Chicago\u2019s South Side through sports, said he\u2019s just excited to give players who may have said their goodbyes to the sport, professionally at least, a chance to get out on the diamond again.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very tough to take the uniform off once your career is over,\u201d he said. \u201cWell, here is a program that\u2019s giving a lot of young people an opportunity to perform.\u201d<\/p>\n When Laila Summers found out about the Snowballs, it meant the world. Having played T-ball since she was 4 years old, the Tinley Park native played softball competitively through college. But Summers, 23, knew there weren\u2019t as many opportunities to keep going, especially for women, postgraduation.<\/p>\n Women\u2019s pro softball leagues and independent teams have come and gone over the years. Last year, the MLB announced it would be investing in the launch of a new softball league, its first comprehensive partnership with a professional women\u2019s sports circuit. And this summer marks the debut of the Women\u2019s Professional Baseball League, the first pro baseball league for women since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League \u2014 of \u201cA League of Their Own\u201d fame \u2014 that folded in 1954.<\/p>\n \u201cBut that\u2019s still for like the top, top (players),\u201d Summers said.<\/p>\n Her mom was the one who suggested she\u2019d be a Snowball, knowing that Summers, alongside being a softball player, was a lifetime performer. Singing since she could open her mouth, Summers is an alumni of community theater, has proudly won two local singing competitions and, as of late, performs with cover bands.<\/p>\n When the time came to apply for the team, Summers and her mom sat at the kitchen table and signed her up together. She\u2019s excited she made the cut, especially for the young girls watching. A youth softball coach out in the south suburbs, Summers says she has plans to bring her proteges to a game. She can\u2019t wait to have them in the stands.<\/p>\n For their inaugural season, the Snowballs will tour stadiums across the Midwest, starting with their May 3 season opener at Kerry Wood Cubs Field on Chicago\u2019s North Side. Like the Globetrotters and their perennial opponents the Washington Generals, the Snowballs will ultimately split into two teams and face off against each other in exhibition-style games, but also hope to play college teams and minor leaguers like the Kane County Cougars.<\/p>\n![\"Zakk](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CTC-L-chicago-snowballs040.jpg\")
Zakk Suits makes a circus catch while taking fielding practice during the first team practice for the new Chicago Snowballs baseball team on Feb. 17, 2026, at The Dome at the Parkway Bank Sports Complex in Rosemont. (Chris Sweda\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n![\"Players](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CTC-L-chicago-snowballs011.jpg\")
Players Laila Summers, lower left, Maximus Bullock, top left, and Avry Blume, top right, learn a dance routine during the first practice for the Chicago Snowballs baseball team on Feb. 17, 2026, at The Dome at the Parkway Bank Sports Complex in Rosemont. (Chris Sweda\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n
![\"KG](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CTC-L-chicago-snowballs030.jpg\")
KG Gaiter laughs as players learn a dance routine during the first team practice for the Chicago Snowballs baseball team on Feb. 17, 2026, at The Dome at the Parkway Bank Sports Complex in Rosemont. (Chris Sweda\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n