Make-A-Wish Helps 10-Year-Old Boy Become A Savannah Banana For A Day

“We are driven by a goal to make baseball fun and Mark’s wish made that goal even more special for our team members and our fans alike.”

On August 3, Mark “Swaggy” Lane signed a contract with baseball’s one-and-only Savannah Bananas. It was a dream come true for the 10 year old from Mansfield, Massachusetts, who suffers from a seizure disorder that causes several hundred seizures a day.

The road to Savannah wasn’t easy for the Lane family. It took three years of testing and misdiagnoses to identify that Mark has a genetic mutation so rare that his is one of only three documented cases in the world. As such, there are currently no FDA-approved treatments for his condition.

Mark is extremely sensitive to light and often wears sunglasses and a hat to limit seizures. Though his peers on the baseball field teased him for it, an older girl shared that she thought his shades and hat gave him “swagger,” and his nickname “Swaggy” was born.

Outgoing and fun-loving, Mark is a big fan of the Savannah Bananas because of their goofy antics and dance numbers, made popular on social media.

Make-A-Wish Massachusetts and Rhode Island partnered with Make-A-Wish Georgia to bring Mark and his family (which includes his four siblings!) to Savannah for two days of special activities. He met the team, learned their dance moves, and was part of game day activities on August 3 at Grayson Stadium. The fifth-grader also participated in batting practice, danced with the players, and even served as the official Savannah Bananas hype man on the shoulders of player Noah Bridges.

The team also had some surprises up their yellow sleeves, including a mini press conference with the team and a Savannah Bananas uniform and locker.

“We are driven by a goal to make baseball fun and Mark’s wish made that goal even more special for our team members and our fans alike,” the team said in a statement.

"Even though the seizures were still there, the diagnosis was still there, the trip was an experience that sort of removed you from that. Every piece of it was about making it fun for our family," Mark’s mom, Aprill, told WBZ News.

Dad Brian told the Boston news station that everyone involved went “above and beyond what we could have imagined.”

“That was what made it really special,” he said.

Well done, y'all!

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