Bull Durham the Movie


"You see, there's no guilt in baseball...and it's never boring."

Annie, the Durham Bulls self selected team mascot opens the movie
with a discourse into the virtues of baseball and life, one of her many
diatribes into her versions of how to play the  game and how to play
the game of life.


Annie's life revolves around the Class A Durham Bulls minor league baseball
team. Her game in life is to select one lucky player per season to teach
the art of playing ball and making love.

On the team is Ebby Calvin LaLoosh, a young pitcher with a million
dollar arm and a 5 cent brain. The club brings in Crash Davis, a
minor league lifer to put some class and baseball savvy into LaLoosh's
career.





Annie, choosing her one player to tutor wisely, determines it's a
toss between Crash and LaLoosh and invites them to her home for
a friendly get together. Crash has been around long enough to
reject Annie, LaLoosh is only interested in one thing....
making love.

Bull Durham is a story about a woman desperately looking for
something solid in her life to love and hold on to. It's a story
about a young player trying to make it to the big leagues, and
a story about a player who should have been in the bigs but
hasn't had the breaks fall his way.


LaLoosh, while certainly a colorful character, is just not what
kids imagine a real big league prospect to be in terms of things like
integrity and hard work and what it really takes to make the majors.

In fact, Bull Durham is not really a movie that any kid should be
watching. While the movie does depict what life is like on a low
class minor league team, it's certainly not anything close to what
parents who are concerned about what their kids are watching
and hearing would ever want their children to hear and see.

The love scenes are close to pornographic; a good bit of the time
the language is vulgar at best.


Annie and her friend Millie are baseball groupies who make love for
lack of a better thing to do. LaLoosh, who Annie soon nicknames,
Nuke, doesn't give a hoot about baseball, it's all too easy with
his God given talents which he doesn't realize is given to only a
very small fortunate few.

Back to the story....Crash rejects Annie's advances which immediately
becomes a turn on for her, something that no ball player had ever done.....
reject her. Annie settles for the boy (Nuke) when she really wants
the man, but Annie really has no clue how to get him.

Annie's self proclaimed mission is to teach Nuke how to pitch.
The Durham Bulls selected Crash Davis to do the same.

Annie finally convinces Nuke to listen to Davis and Nuke then
allows Crash to teach him the finer points of the game and
learns to respect the wisdom of Crash.


"Here It is. This is a simple game. You throw the ball, you
hit the ball, you catch the ball. You got that?!"

"Be arrogant even when you're getting beat. That's the secret.
You gotta play this game with fear and arrogance."

"Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes
it rains."

Kevin Costner & Susan Sarandon




In a strange turn of events, Jimmy, the single gentleman and
Christian on the team marries Millie who has slept with half
the players in the Carolina League. It really makes no sense,
other than one would like to believe Millie finally learns the error
of her ways and needs to settle down with something stable in
her life.


"If you know where home plate is, then you know where 1st base is,
and 2nd, and everything else--'cause they're always in the same
place in relation to home."

"Don't you see? If you know where home plate is, then you know
where everything else in the universe is!"





Nuke gets his big chance at a shot in The Show. Crash, his job
done with the Bulls, get released and goes to Annie. They have
a steamy love making session, after which Crash leaves to play
with another team. There he hits a homer which breaks the minor league
record for home runs. Then he quits the game.


"You know what the difference Is between hitting .250 and hitting
.300? 1 got it figured out. Twenty-five hits a year in 500 at
bats is 50 points. Okay? There's 6 months in a season, that's about
25 weeks--you get one extra flare a week--just one--a gork, a ground
ball with eyes, a dying quail--just one more dying quail a week
and you're in Yankee Stadium!"


Crash ends up at Annie's, and just as the movie began, it ends
with more of Annie's philosophical views.....

"Walt Whitman once said--"I see great things in baseball. It's
our game--the American game He said "it will repair our losses
and be a blessing to us"...



Bull Durham
1988

Kevin Costner .... Crash Davis
Susan Sarandon .... Annie Savoy
Tim Robbins .... Ebby Calvin 'Nuke' LaLoosh
Trey Wilson .... Joe Riggins
Robert Wuhl .... Larry Hockett
William O'Leary .... Jimmy
David Neidorf .... Bobby
Danny Gans .... Deke
Tom Silardi .... Tony
Lloyd T. Williams .... Mickey McFee
Rick Marzan .... Jose
George Buck .... Mr. Laloosh
Jenny Robertson .... Millie
Gregory Avellone .... Doc
Garland Bunting .... Teddy Cullinane

Runtime: 108 min

Director/writer Ron Shelton was formerly a minor league player in the Carolina League.

The diamond action was shot at El Toro Field, home of the real Durham Bulls.

During the time the film was made, the Durham Bulls were a Single A (Rookie) League and were an affiliate of the Atlanta Braves.
Since then the Bulls built a new stadium, and became a Triple A
affiliate of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.



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