Cosmic Baseball (Cosmic Chili Peppers vs. The Glowmojis) @ Coca-Cola Park (Allentown, PA)

*This trip occurred on May 14, 2026, and if I'm being honest, the "NEW TEAM" badge doesn't really do this justice, but I don't have anything "better".

Back when I first talked about the Savannah Bananas, I mentioned that they used to part of a league called the Coastal Plain League. Apparently, said league is a hotbed for alternative forms of baseball, because today we're talking about another "alt baseball craze" started by a team from the CPL: Cosmic Baseball.

I'll get more into what exactly Cosmic Baseball is when I actually discuss the game itself, but the short answer is that it's baseball played under black/ultraviolet lights. To make the game actually playable (though it is still rather difficult apparently), the uniforms and equipment for the game are all in colors that react to the lights, creating a unique viewing experience of "glow in the dark baseball" (similar to how many bowling alleys in the United States have "cosmic bowling" under similar conditions).

Much like the original Banana Ball post, I think the best way to discuss this is by breaking it down into sections. I don't THINK it will be anywhere near the 8,000 words of the original Banana Ball post, but let's start with the organization behind the madness:

The Tri-City Chili Peppers (Coastal Plain League)

The Tri-City Chili Peppers are a member of the Coastal Plain League (a summer wood bad league) based just south of Richmond in Colonial Heights, Virginia. They were founded in 2020, but didn't play until 2021 due to COVID; I won't talk about how they've done on the field, but let's just say it's a bell curve of results - just don't ask where the baseline is.

They've also been moderately decent attendance wise: not the runaway success the Savannah Bananas were mind you, but they've consistently climbed up the CPL's attendance rankings each year they've been in the league, and ranked fifth last season (despite finishing near the bottom of the league).

Let there be black lights

On June 1, 2024, the team debuted a new form of baseball: Cosmic Baseball. The idea apparently came when the team's owner saw a glow in the dark toy and thought about playing "glow in the dark baseball", but it took a while for the team's stadium to be set up for it (as installing enough safe black lights for the game isn't easy). The Chili Peppers played (at least) five more cosmic games that year against another summer league team (from a smaller league)¹, and a year later, the team announced a "Cosmic Takeover Tour" - bringing Cosmic Baseball to seven Minor League baseball stadiums as well as introducing a second team: the Glowmojis (i.e. Cosmic Baseball's version of the Party Animals). The team was able to develop a solution to allow for portable black lights, but no one knew how popular the games would end up being.

That question was quickly answered when the tour stops all sold out. In order to meet the still hot demand, the team instituted a lottery system (not unlike Banana Ball's) at some point; I only know this information because of this YouTube video from a guy who lives in Richmond and has been following Cosmic Baseball since the beginning. I did end up seeing a page for the lottery last year, but opted not to try and enter as I felt the game I would've chosen to go to was too close (i.e. I didn't think they were still pulling names).

In 2026, the Cosmic Takeover Tour expanded to more MiLB stadiums, and the lottery system was still in place (but there's no K Club equivalent to let you skip the lottery). I don't have any idea how said lottery works, but I was able to enter sometime last fall (IIRC) for dates in the stadium nearest me: Coca-Cola Park in Allentown, PA (which was one of Cosmic Baseball's 2025 stops, and the one I thought about trying to go to last year). Sometime around mid-March, I was notified that lottery winners would be drawn for "limited seats", and then a few days later...

YOU'RE WINNER

I'll be honest: the initial writing session for this post was difficult because after I started it while on a high from WINNING THE LOTTERY - though you probably knew that I had won by this point (otherwise this post wouldn't exist).

Three dates were available to me, but due to a commitment I made the day before the lottery, I opted to choose the Thursday date as that was the one with the least conflict. I decided to buy two tickets (which were around 40 bucks each) just in case I wanted to bring someone along, but due to the game being about an hour away from home on a Thursday night, no one was really available.

Before I continue, I should mention that I'm not going to discuss Coca-Cola Park at length since I already did that last year, and there haven't exactly been any major changes since then. The big thing think I think you should know is that the stadium is getting a new name in a few years, as it was announced this year that Coca-Cola decided not to renew their naming rights deal (and also the IronPigs led MiLB in attendance again in 2025). However, I do want to discuss something I didn't see last time:

The Upper Deck

I mentioned in my last visit to Coca-Cola Park that there were upper level seats that I didn't get to explore. However, I was able to get one of these upper level seats for this game, and I REALLY liked it (especially in the context of the "cosmic" part of the game - I'll get to that soon). It seems that these seats are NOT easy to get for whatever reason: when I was trying to figure out where exactly my seat was (within its section), these seats were not available for any of the IronPigs games I checked save for a morning game, and many of them have names (indicating that they're held by season ticket holders).

One of the reasons it's hard to get seats up here (as well as said seats being a bit more than the "lower bowl"): there’s a club area up here complete with its own bar area, concession stand, and even a merch booth (or at least they had one for this game)! Also, I was in the first row, and there was a ton of legroom between the seats and the balcony fence. Sure, you’re a bit further behind than your typical row, but you don’t have to ask people to awkwardly stand up if you’re in the middle of the row!

With that out of the way, let's start actually talking about the event itself - starting with

Pregame

Much like Banana Ball, the experience begins with a pregame plaza experience. I do not know how Banana Ball sets up here (as they've been here before and have more games planned for this year), but for this game, the experience was mostly INSIDE the stadium (in the right field plaza area). There were still a few parts of the stadium blocked off, but a fair number of concession stands were available (including the all important Chickie's and Pete's). There was also a "VIP Pass" available which would allow you to enter early (among other things), but I didn't think it was super worth it (especially when you consider the unused ticket I bought).

The central focus of the entertainment for the pregame show was a group known as the "Cosmic Flight Crew": four trained circus performers who did various circus stunts. If I'm being honest, their pregame show gave me "Quincy Market Street Performer" vibes - not necessarily a bad thing mind you².

Also, there's appaprently no set "home team" heading into the game; the "home team" is determined by the fans before the game, and this time, the Chili Peppers ended up as the home team. I'm not sure how much of an advantage batting second confers in Cosmic Baseball (I'll explain why later), but I'm fairly certain it's not as significant as Banana Ball where every inning can end with a walk-off.

In the beginning

The game starts with an "Unceremonial First Pitch", where a lucky fan gets to throw the first pitch of the game - to the first batter of the game³. I'm not sure how "staged" it is, but the poor fan hit the first batter, which sparked a "benches clearing brawl".

The first half of the game is basically "normal" baseball, but similar to Banana Ball's ruleset, bunting, mound visits, and batters stepping out of the box are not allowed. One major difference between the two is that in Cosmic Baseball, if a batter is thrown four balls, they get to take the ball and then throw it in front of them and hit it (what's known as a "fungo" swing - and yes, this CAN turn into an out).

There are also two "gimmick innings" - one reverses the order of bases (i.e. starting at third then going down to first), and the other features a "chaos period" where foul territory basically does not exist - and this includes balls going into the stands. I do not know if these are set to be in a specific order, but one fan determines which by selecting an UNO card before the second inning.

After those two innings happen, I THINK there's supposed to be a fourth inning of "normal baseball", but at this particular game the fourth inning was "skipped" (partialy as the score was 0-0 at the time). After that, there's something that's almost unheard of in baseball:

Intermission

I'll be honest: I missed a lot of the intermission activities as I was in line for ice cream.

I know that the Flight Crew comes back out and does stuff with various fans, but near the end, once it's dark enough, they pull a large "light switch" out and a countdown begins. Once that countdown hits zero...

Genesis

Once the lights switch, then the whole thing goes from "normal" to "a total rave"...and I must admit: the atmosphere was ELECTRIC. Players are standing along the field throwing baseballs into the stands the entire time, music is playing almost consistently, and there's actually party lights in the outfield.

One thing I found interesting was that the glow in the dark effect is more pronounced when seen from a distance: if you're looking at your own clothes in the black light, it honestly just looks like they're shining in normal light. However, if you look at someone a few feet away, you can see the "glow" in what they're wearing (assuming they're wearing the right colors for the effect to work - which a lot of people were because MERCH).

The game goes back to "more traditional" baseball for this second half (without the gimmick innings), but one thing unique to this second half: home run derbies after every inning. Each team sends one batter up, and that batter gets 45 seconds to hit as many home runs as they can - with each home run scoring a run for their team. This is part of why I think that batting second is less important (since most of the runs come from this HRD), and it also means that a Cosmic Baseball game will almost certainly be MUCH closer to a football score than a baseball one. This game didn't see as many runs scored as other Cosmic Baseball games I perused on the team's YouTube, but it did end with a 26-20 score in favor of the Glowmojis.

Cosmic Glow-Merch-ji

There are TONS of different Cosmic Baseball hats and jerseys on the Chili Peppers' online store for both teams (along with shirts and stuff, but I'm mostly focused on hats and jerseys). When I checked their store shortly after winning the tickets, I found that each team had no less than three hats that appeared to be for games, as well as FOUR jerseys each (and since then, more hats have been released).

A few days after getting my tickets I ordered hats marked "game hats" for the two teams (one hat per team); notably, all hats (including the game hats) are snapbacks - probably because the manufacturer doesn't want to waste materials on fitteds/flexfits that may or may not sell.

At the game, there was a merch area in the plaza (which was SUPER busy before the game), but also one in the outfield (which I beelined for when that part of the park opened), plus the aforementioned booth in the second floor club area. I did also check out the IronPigs store to see if there was anything interesting as I saw they had non-sublimated jerseys, but since said jerseys didn't have the scripts on them "fully" stitched on, I decided to pass on all of them (and the one I was most interested in had FAUX STITCHES - WHY?????).

One VERY interesting thing about merch: the team clearly has a deeply religious identity. Every hat and jersey I saw has the phrase "YOU CAN'T LIMIT GOD" inside of it, and the game ended with one of the players leading a prayer.\

Final thoughts

Cosmic Baseball was REALLY fun - I could honestly make an argument that it's better than Banana Ball (though that may be due to a few factors - namely how long it's been around and the fact that I've only seen Banana Ball at MLB stadiums)⁴. However...I can't help but wonder what the Chili Peppers are thinking about for the future.

The day I started writing this post, I found out that they "split" their Cosmic Baseball and CPL team websites with no real interconnection; the Cosmic Baseball site ranked higher on Google's search results. In addition, their YouTube channel was simply named "Cosmic Baseball", but old Chili Peppers videos/broadcasts still exist on the channel indicating that it was once the Chili Peppers YouTube channel. There is also the fact that, as I mentioned earlier, I ordered a few items from the team before the game, and the shipping label had "Cosmic Sports" as the sender.

For me, all of these indicate that the Chili Peppers may pull a Savannah Bananas and leave the CPL to focus on Cosmic Baseball; however, they are playing in the CPL for the 2026 season (as their CPL team and website still exist), so who knows what they'll end up doing (though as I've mentioned before, the summer leagues are sadly facing a downturn due to a decline in player participation, so that may be a factor).

Another thing with Cosmic Baseball's future: I get the sense that MLB and NFL stadiums are going to be MUCH more difficult than Banana Ball due to the black lights. Getting them set up in a minor league stadium is one thing, but MLB stadiums are a different beast altogether: the smallest MLB stadium (that isn't a Minor League stadium hosting a Major League team that REALLY wanted to get out of Oakland but can't go to Vegas quite yet) is still more than twice as big as the largest MiLB stadium (though said stadium is hosting Cosmic Baseball this year).

Anyway, I realize that similar to Banana Ball, this is a hard-to-get-into experience that a lot of folks reading this may not get to see soon (and/or don't like for trying to make baseball more "gimmicky"). However, I do think these types of experiences are a nice way to try and make sporting events more "accessible" to people who find them boring, and I think that if you can find a way to get tickets, it's a fun night out if you're looking for something different to do.

P.S.: You may have noticed that I have not yet named the person who invented Cosmic Baseball. That's because unlike Jesse Cole, he seems to keep a LOW profile (as in I don't think he does any on-field stuff), but his name is Chris Martin, and I'm guessing he hasn't accidentally exposed any CEOs having affairs recently...

Also, I was right about this not being 8,000 words again: According to my highly unscientific word counter, this post is just under 3,000 words including the footnotes AND this little tidbit.