Delco’s Joe Sperone quit his job to chase his dream with the Savannah Bananas

Joe Sperone was working last year at a mortgage brokerage in Conshohocken and believed his baseball career ended in September with a few-week stint on Staten Island in one of the lower rungs of professional ball where the crowds were sparse and the checks were thin.

And that would have been OK. Those two games with the Staten Island FerryHawks meant Sperone, who grew up in Broomall and pitched at Cardinal O’Hara and West Chester University, could always say he played professionally.

But then he received a call from the Savannah Bananas, the viral sensation often described as baseball’s version of the Harlem Globetrotters that has a waiting list for tickets and will play Saturday and Sunday at sold-out Citizens Bank Park. They wanted him.

Sperone quit his job at Freedom Mortgage the following day and left Delaware County for Georgia in January. He was placed on the Texas Tailgaters, one of the three teams that play against the Bananas. That’s how Sperone found himself last month on the field in Cincinnati, surrounded by more than 40,000 screaming fans in a major league ballpark.

“I knew we were going to be playing in front of a lot of people and the biggest crowds I’ve ever played in front of,” Sperone said. “But it didn’t hit me until I was standing there and looking around. Like, ‘Wow. This is it. I finally made it. This is my dream right here.’”

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Then the tears started forming as his emotions overtook him. Sperone dreamed of being a big leaguer since he was 4, loved the Phillies, and fine-tuned his arm every day in the backyard with his dad. When his dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in 2024, Sperone pushed to play professionally so his dad could see him get there. Now, he was being paid to play in a sold-out big league park.

“I could hear the difference between 10,000 and 45,000,” Sperone said. “This is why I did it. This is why I wanted to do this. For them to see me live out my dream.”

John Sperone used to show off to his friends by asking his 6-year-old son to rattle off the Phillies’ starting lineup.

“I would rip it off like nothing,” Joe Sperone said.

Sperone calls his dad his best friend, the kind of guy who finished a 10-hour workday by squatting in the backyard to catch another bullpen session and then ice his hand after without a complaint.

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His dad sat with him in the stands at Citizens Bank Park, spent hours driving him to travel ball tournaments, and kept pushing him toward his dream. So it’s easy to imagine how Sperone felt last year when his father was diagnosed with angiosarcoma, a rare form of cancer.

“That boosted my dream a little bit,” Sperone said. “I was like, ‘I want to do this for him.’ I always wanted to do it for him. He’s always been the guy by my side through it all. He’s my best friend. He’s truly been the one person by my side who always had my back.”

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Sperone called every coach he knew after graduating last May from West Chester with a business degree. He needed to play pro ball. Finally, the FerryHawks called. They were searching for fresh arms to finish out the Atlantic League season. Sperone, who pitched four seasons at West Chester, was in.

He made a few hundred dollars per game and shared a clubhouse with Pablo Sandoval, the two-time MLB All Star who has spent the last few seasons in independent baseball.

“It was a little crazy walking in that first day and seeing Pablo Sandoval,” Sperone said. “I was like, ‘OK.’”

“ ‘It didn’t hit me until I was standing there and looking around. Like, ‘Wow. This is it. I finally made it. This is my dream right here.’”

John Sperone and his wife, Donna Furia-Sperone, traveled to watch Joe pitch and sat in the stands just like they always did. It was one more chance to watch him on the field, and it was great.

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“We thought he was done,” John Sperone said. “So we were over the moon. We just love to watch him play. Again, he was playing with ‘The Panda.’ He was the World Series MVP, and here he is next to him.”

A recruiter from the Bananas invited Sperone to a tryout last November. A month later, he was telling his parents that he was quitting his office job to chase a dream.

“He said, ‘I know you want us to have 40-hour-a-week jobs,’” John Sperone said. “We were like, ‘Absolutely not. We want you to go have fun and live out your dream. We want you to play as long as you can.’”

Joe Sperone was introduced to the rules of “Banana Ball” — where outs can be made if a fan catches a foul ball — and learned how to film TikToks as the team relies heavily on social media to spread its brand.

The Bananas train and practice all week, play two or three games a weekend, travel the country, and play in big league parks when the major league teams are on the road. It’s a dream, and his parents are along for the ride.

“The traveling, we don’t even care anymore,” John Sperone said. “Everyone knows that this doesn’t last forever. To see him play even one more time is tremendous for us.”

John Sperone underwent two rounds of chemotherapy, and his CT scan in May was clear. It was a difficult year, his son said. But things now feel promising.

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On Saturday night, John Sperone will be in the stands at Citizens Bank Park with his wife and a hundred family and friends. Joe Sperone cried in Cincinnati, so he said his emotions this weekend will be “probably that same feeling times a million” when he plays in the ballpark he went to as a kid. His dad, the guy who pushed his kid to dream, will be feeling the same.

“Just sitting in the stands watching 45,000 fans cheering on your son,” John Sperone said. “That’s amazing.”