Savannah Bananas Player Explains What Happened After Faceplanting Hard While Doing Backflip On CNN

When it comes to entertaining audiences, the Savannah Bananas are committed to the bit.

But usually, when one of the players plans to do a stunt, even if it's The Sandlot's Patrick Renna bunting the ball into center field, they follow through without a hitch.

Savannah Bananas' RobertAnthony Cruz, who's popularly referred to as "Coach RAC," is one of those players. He's landed, by his own estimation, "tens of thousands" of backflips on the field and for other Savannah Bananas appearances. Frequently, in between plays, or even while catching the ball, he'll complete the task with a backflip.

Here's a great example of Cruz catching an outfielder, backflip and all.

So when the baseball player and youth baseball coach was invited for an interview on CNN, it was a no-brainer.

The production team planned for Cruz to come out, do some kind of quick performance for the crowd, and then conduct the interview, so Cruz decided to do one of his famous backflips.

But Cruz didn't take into consideration that he'd just completed a long weekend of youth baseball tournament coaching, airline flights, and only gotten four hours of sleep.

He also didn't expect the stage lights to be so bright, and the floor to be mostly white, which made it more difficult for him to keep track of where he was in the air and caused him to end the flip early.

So all the crowd gets to see is RobertAnthony Cruz standing on the CNN platform, readying himself to flip, and then fully face-planting on the floor with his legs slipping out behind him, arms flailing, and face smacking the floor.

You can see the flip fail here:

Viewers openly questioned how Cruz missed the backflip and thought it might be performative.

A few simply found it hilarious.

As the video went viral, Coach RAC entered the chat, explaining what happened in an Instagram video.

Coach RAC reflected:

"I have done tens of thousands of backflips in my life. I had zero reason to doubt my abilities."

"But then I'm standing on the stage, I'm getting the countdown, I send the flip, and the next thing I know, I am on the floor, and I am rattled."

"I was pretty confused. My mic pack fell out of my pocket. My shoe flew off of my foot. I don't even know how that happened!"

"I feel bad for the news anchors, because they just sat there, like, 'Okay, we're not supposed to laugh, but oh my gosh, that was pretty funny,' and then they had to just carry on. So sorry, guys!"

"When I got up, I felt fine, so then I was like, okay, maybe I can go about my interview, but then I see the blood dripping down from my chin and my lips, and I'm like, okay, never mind, this day is probably canned."

"We cleaned up the blood a little bit, [and] fortunately enough, there was a doctor in that building, so I got checked out. I ended up getting several stitches in my lip and chin."

"I had all of these feelings like, one, I'm embarrassed. I'm on live television and just wiped out. Two, I was like, how did that even happen?"

"In hindsight, when you do a flip, you are looking for the ground while you're rotating, so I remember jumping back and seeing a bright light in my face, and the floor itself was very light, so I just kind of lost where I was in the air and wound up under-rotating."

"Thank god, aside from my damaged pride, I didn't sustain any actually serious injuries."

Fans were grateful that Cruz was okay after the fall.

@coach.rac/Instagram

@coach.rac/Instagram

@coach.rac/Instagram

@coach.rac/Instagram

@coach.rac/Instagram

Others applauded Cruz for being such a strong, and literal, role model for getting back up after falling down.

@coach.rac/Instagram

@coach.rac/Instagram

@coach.rac/Instagram

@coach.rac/Instagram

@coach.rac/Instagram

It would have been cool to see Cruz do a backflip on live television and then move through an interview, likely discussing his career as a baseball player, entertainer, and coach.

But there was a vital life lesson locked into this accident, which was to pick yourself up when you get knocked down, and laugh with yourself if you can.