The film stars Kevin Costner as "Crash" Davis, a veteran catcher from the AAARichmond Braves, brought in to teach rookie pitcher Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) about the game in preparation for reaching the major leagues. Baseball groupie Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) romances Nuke but finds herself increasingly attracted to Crash. Also featured are Robert Wuhl and Trey Wilson, as well as "The Clown Prince of Baseball", Max Patkin.
Bull Durham was a commercial success, grossing over $50 million in North America, well above its estimated budget, and was a critical success as well. Sports Illustrated ranked it the #1 Greatest Sports Movie of all time. The Moving Arts Film Journal ranked it #3 on its list of the 25 Greatest Sports Movies of All-Time. In addition, the film is ranked #55 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies." It is also ranked #97 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years...100 Laughs" list, and #1 on Rotten Tomatoes' list of the 53 best-reviewed sports movies.
Plot
The Durham Bulls, a single-AMinor League Baseball team, are dealing with another sparsely attended losing season, with one thing working for them: Ebby Calvin LaLoosh, a hotshot rookie pitcher known for having a "million dollar arm, but a five cent head," who has potential to become a major league talent. "Crash" Davis, a 12-year veteran in the minor leagues, is sent down from Triple-A as the team's catcher to teach LaLoosh to control his haphazard pitching. Crash immediately begins calling Ebby by the degrading nickname of "Meat", and they get off to a rocky start.
Thrown into the mix is Annie, a "baseball groupie" and lifelong spiritual seeker who has latched onto the "Church of Baseball" and has, every year, chosen one player on the Bulls to be her lover and student. Annie flirts with both Crash and Ebby and invites them to her house, but Crash walks out, saying he's too much of a veteran to "try out" for anything. But before he leaves, Crash sparks Annie's interest with a memorable speech listing the things he "believes in", ending with, "I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days... Good night".
Despite some animosity between them, Annie and Crash work, in their own ways, to shape Ebby into a big-league pitcher. Annie plays mild bondage games, reads poetry to him, gets him to try different mental approaches to pitching, and gives him the nickname "Nuke".
Crash forces Nuke to learn "not to think" by letting the catcher make the pitching calls. After Nuke shakes off his signs, he twice tells the batters what pitch is coming, leading to both players hitting home runs; he also lectures him about the pressure of facing major league hitters who can hit his "heat" (fastballs). Crash talks about life in the major leagues, which he lived for "the 21 greatest days of my life" and to which he has tried for years to return. Meanwhile, as Nuke matures, the relationship between Annie and Crash grows, until it becomes obvious that the two of them are a more appropriate match.
After a rough start, Nuke becomes a dominant pitcher by mid-season, adding to the Bulls' good fortunes; in the end, he is called up to the major leagues. This incites jealous anger in Crash, who is frustrated by Nuke's failure to value the rare talent he has. Nuke leaves, Annie ends their relationship, and Crash overcomes his jealousy enough to leave Nuke with some final words of advice.
The Bulls, now having no use for Nuke's mentor, call up a younger catcher and release Crash. Crash presents himself at Annie's house and the two consummate their attraction with a weekend-long lovemaking session. Crash then leaves Annie's house to seek a further minor-league position.
Nuke is seen one last time, being interviewed by the press as a major leaguer, reciting the clichéd answers that Crash had taught him earlier. Crash joins another team, the Asheville Tourists, and breaks the minor-league record for career home runs. He then retires as a player and returns to Durham, where Annie tells him she's ready to give up her annual affairs with "boys." Crash tells her that he is thinking about becoming a manager for a minor-league team in Visalia. The film ends with Annie and Crash dancing in Annie's candle-lit living room.
The film's name is based on the nickname for Durham, North Carolina, since 1874, when W. T. Blackwell and Company named its product "Bull" Durham tobacco, which soon became a well-known trademark. In 1898, James B. Duke purchased the company and renamed it the American Tobacco Company. By this time, the nickname "Bull City" had already stuck.
He returned to school and earned a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture at the University of Arizona before moving to Los Angeles to join the city's art scene. However, he felt more kinship in telling stories than in creating performance art. His break into filmmaking came with scriptwriting credits on the films Under Fire and The Best of Times.[2]
According to Shelton, "I wrote a very early script about minor league baseball; the only thing it had in common with Bull Durham was that it was about a pitcher and a catcher."[4] That script was titled The Player To Be Named Later; a single anecdote from that script made it into Bull Durham.[2] For Bull Durham, Shelton "decided to see if a woman could tell the story" and "dictated that opening monologue on a little micro-recorder while I was driving around North Carolina."[4] Crash was named after Lawrence "Crash" Davis but was modeled after Pike Bishop, the lead character William Holden played in The Wild Bunch: a guy who "loved something more than it loved him."[4] Annie Savoy's name was a combination of the nickname ("Annies") that baseball players gave their groupies and the name of a bar; she was a "High Priestess [who] could lead us into a man's world, and shine a light on it. And she would be very sensual, and sexual, yet she'd live by her own rigorous moral code. It seemed like a character we hadn't seen before."[4] After Shelton returned to Los Angeles from his road trip, he wrote the script for Bull Durham in "about twelve weeks."[4]
Filming began on October 5, 1987, and wrapped on November 30, 1987, after 56 days of filming. When Shelton pitched Bull Durham, he had a hard time convincing a studio to give him the opportunity to direct.[2] Baseball movies were not considered a viable commercial prospect at the time and every studio passed except for Orion Pictures who gave him a $9 million budget (with many cast members accepting lower-than-usual salaries because of the material), an eight-week shooting schedule, and creative freedom.[2] Shelton scouted locations throughout the southern United States before settling on Durham in North Carolina because of its old ballpark and its location, "among abandoned tobacco warehouses and on the edge of an abandoned downtown and in the middle of a residential neighborhood where people could walk".[5] According to NO BULL: The Real Story of the Rebirth of a Team and a City by Ron Morris, Shelton decided because the city was "run down with vacated tobacco warehouses and boarded up downtown storefronts" it made a "down-and-out, minor-league town that represented his story well."[6] The Imperial Tobacco Warehouse, which is currently owned and has been renovated by Measurement Incorporated, was used as a filming location.[7] The Queen Anne style James Manning House, built in 1880, was used for Annie Savoy's romantic encounters.[6]
Shelton cast Costner because of the actor's natural athleticism. Costner was a former high school baseball player and was able to hit two home runs while the cameras were rolling and, according to Shelton, insisted "on throwing runners out even when they (the cameras) weren't rolling".[8] He cast Robbins over the strong objections of the studio, who wanted Anthony Michael Hall instead.[9] Shelton had to threaten to quit before the studio backed off.[4]
Producer Thom Mount (who is part-owner of the real Durham Bulls) hired Pete Bock, a former semi-pro baseball player, as a consultant on the film. Bock recruited more than a dozen minor-league players, ran a tryout camp to recruit an additional 40 to 50 players from lesser ranks, hired several minor-league umpires, and conducted two-a-day workouts and practice games with Tim Robbins pitching and Kevin Costner catching.[2] Bock made sure the actors looked and acted like ballplayers and that the real players acted convincingly in front of the cameras. He said, "The director would say, 'This is the shot we want. What we need is the left fielder throwing a one-hopper to the plate. Then we need a good collision at the plate.' I would select the players I know could do the job, and then we would go out and get it done."[10]
Reception
Box office
Bull Durham debuted on June 15, 1988, and grossed $5 million in 1,238 theaters on its opening weekend. It went on to gross a total of $50.8 million in North America, well above its estimated $9 million budget.[1]
Critical response
"A few months after it came out, I was having dinner at a restaurant called The Imperial Gardens. A man came up and asked if I was Ron Shelton. I said yes, and he said, 'Somebody would like to meet you.' So I followed him—I didn't realize at the time it was Stanley Donen, the director—and he brought me over to his best friend, Billy Wilder. Wilder looked up and said, 'Great fuckin' picture, kid!' I said, 'Mr. Wilder, that's the best review I've ever had!'"
The film was well-received critically. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 97%, based on 72 reviews, with an average rating of 8.00/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Kevin Costner is at his funniest and most charismatic in Bull Durham, a film that's as wise about relationships as it is about minor league baseball."[11] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[12] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[13]
According to a Los Angeles Times poll of 100 film critics, Bull Durham was the second most acclaimed film of 1988, second to only to the documentary The Thin Blue Line.[14]
In David Ansen's review for Newsweek, he wrote that the film "works equally as a love story, a baseball fable and a comedy, while ignoring the clichés of each genre".[2]Vincent Canby praised Shelton's direction in his review for The New York Times: "He demonstrates the sort of expert comic timing and control that allow him to get in and out of situations so quickly that they're over before one has time to question them. Part of the fun in watching Bull Durham is in the awareness that a clearly seen vision is being realized. This is one first-rate debut".[15]
Roger Ebert praised Sarandon's performance in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times: "I don't know who else they could have hired to play Annie Savoy, the Sarandon character who pledges her heart and her body to one player a season, but I doubt if the character would have worked without Sarandon's wonderful performance".[16] In his review for Sports Illustrated, Steve Wulf wrote, "It's a good movie and a damn good baseball movie".[17] Hal Hinson, in his review for The Washington Post, wrote, "The people associated with Bull Durham know the game ... and the firsthand experience shows in their easy command of the ballplayer's vernacular, in their feel for what goes through a batter's head when he digs in at the plate and in their knowledge of the secret ceremonies that take place on the mound".[18] Richard Corliss, in his review for Time, wrote, "Costner's surly sexiness finally pays off here; abrading against Sarandon's earth-mama geniality and Robbins' rube egocentricity, Costner strikes sparks".[19]
Legacy
Bull Durham was named Best Screenplay of 1988 by New York Film Critics' Circle.[20] The film became a minor hit when released, and is now considered one of the best sports movies of all time.[21] In 2003, Sports Illustrated ranked Bull Durham as the "Greatest Sports Movie".[22] In addition, the film is ranked number 55 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies."[23] It is also ranked #97 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years...100 Laughs" list, and #1 on Rotten Tomatoes' Top Sports Movies[24] list of the 53 best reviewed sports movies of all time. Entertainment Weekly ranked Bull Durham as the fifth best DVD of their Top 30 Sports Movies on DVD.[25] The magazine also ranked the film as the fifth best sports film since 1983 in their "Sports 25: The Best Thrill-of-Victory, Agony-of-Defeat Films Since 1983" poll[26] and #5 on their "50 Sexiest Movies Ever" poll.[27] In June 2008, AFI revealed its "Ten top Ten"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Bull Durham was acknowledged as the fifth best film in the sports genre.[28][29][30] The real life Durham Bulls, playing in the single-A Carolina League at the time of the film's release, would later see the team open a new ballpark (Durham Bulls Athletic Park) in 1995, and would be promoted to the triple-A International League in 1998.
In 2003, a 15th anniversary celebration of Bull Durham at the National Baseball Hall of Fame was canceled by Hall of Fame president Dale Petroskey. Petroskey, who was on the White House staff during the Reagan administration, told Robbins that the actor's public opposition to the US-led war in Iraq helped to "undermine the U.S. position, which could put our troops in even more danger."[31] Costner, a self-described libertarian, defended Robbins and Sarandon, saying, "I think Tim and Susan's courage is the type of courage that makes our democracy work. Pulling back this invite is against the whole principle about what we fight for and profess to be about."[31]
For years, Ron Shelton has contemplated making a sequel and remarked, "I couldn't figure out in the few years right after it came out, what do you do? Nuke's in the big leagues, Crash is managing in Visalia. Is Annie going to go to Visalia? I've been to Visalia. That will test a relationship ... It was not a simple fable to continue with – not that we don't talk about continuing it, now that everyone's in their 60s".[5]
Actor Trey Wilson, who played Durham manager Joe Riggins, died of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 40, seven months after this film's release.
Bull Durham was originally released on DVD on October 27, 1998, and included an audio commentary by writer/director Ron Shelton.[34] A Special Edition DVD was released on April 2, 2002, and included the Shelton commentary track from the previous edition, a new commentary by Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins, a Between the Lines: The Making of Bull Durham featurette, a Sports Wrap featurette, and a Costner profile.[35] A "Collector's Edition" DVD celebrating the film's 20th anniversary was released on March 18, 2008, and features the two commentaries from the previous edition, a Greatest Show on Dirt featurette, a Diamonds in the Rough featurette that explores minor league baseball, The Making of Bull Durham featurette, and Costner profile from the previous edition. The Criterion Collection also released blu-ray and DVD editions of the film which included a new conversation between Shelton and film critic Michael Sragow.[36]
Susan Abigail Sarandon is an American actor. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for a Daytime Emmy Award, six Primetime Emmy Awards, and nine Golden Globe Awards. In 2002, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The Carolina League is a Minor League Baseball league which has operated along the Atlantic Coast of the United States since 1945. Having been classified at various levels throughout its existence, it operated at Class A-Advanced from 1990 until its demotion to Single-A following Major League Baseball's 2021 reorganization of the minor leagues. The league temporarily operated for the 2021 season as the Low-A East before reassuming its original moniker in 2022.
Field of Dreams is a 1989 American sports fantasy drama film written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson, based on Canadian novelist W. P. Kinsella's 1982 novel Shoeless Joe. The film stars Kevin Costner as a farmer who builds a baseball field in his cornfield that attracts the ghosts of baseball legends, including Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Chicago Black Sox. Amy Madigan, James Earl Jones, and Burt Lancaster also star.
Kevin Michael Costner is an American actor, producer, and director. He has received various accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Tin Cup is a 1996 American romantic comedy and sports film co-written and directed by Ron Shelton, and starring Kevin Costner and Rene Russo with Cheech Marin and Don Johnson in major supporting roles. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and performed moderately at the box office, grossing $75.8 million against its $45 million budget. Costner received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.
Timothy Francis Robbins is an American actor. He is best known for portraying Andy Dufresne in the film The Shawshank Redemption (1994), and Jacob Singer in Jacob's Ladder (1990), as well as winning an Academy Award and Golden Globe award for his role in Mystic River (2003) and another Golden Globe for The Player (1992).
The Durham Bulls are a Minor League Baseball team of the International League and the Triple-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays. They are located in Durham, North Carolina, and play their home games at Durham Bulls Athletic Park, which opened in 1995.
Robert Wuhl is an American actor, comedian and writer. He is best known as the creator and star of the television comedy series Arliss (1996–2002) and for his portrayal of newspaper reporter Alexander Knox in Tim Burton's Batman (1989) and Larry in Bull Durham (1988).
Stephen Louis Dalkowski Jr., nicknamed Dalko, was an American left-handed pitcher. He was sometimes called the fastest pitcher in baseball history and had a fastball that probably exceeded 100 mph (160 km/h). Some experts believed it went as fast as 110 mph (180 km/h), others that his pitches traveled at less than that speed. As no radar gun or other device was available at games to measure the speed of his pitches precisely, the actual top speed of his pitches remains unknown. Regardless of its actual speed, his fastball earned him the nickname "White Lightning". Such was his reputation that despite his never reaching the major leagues, and finishing his minor league years in class-B ball, the 1966 Sporting News item about the end of his career was headlined "Living Legend Released."
Max Patkin was an American baseball player and clown, best known as the Clown Prince of Baseball.
Durham Athletic Park, nicknamed "The DAP", is a former minor league baseball stadium in Durham, North Carolina. The stadium was home to the Durham Bulls from 1926 through 1994, the North Carolina Central Eagles and the Durham School of the Arts Bulldogs. The DAP sits north of the downtown area of Durham, on the block bounded by Washington, Corporation, Foster and Geer Streets.
Ronald Wayne Shelton is an American film director and screenwriter and former minor league baseball infielder. Shelton is known for the many films he has made about sports. His 1988 film Bull Durham, based in part on his own baseball experiences, earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
Wallace McArthur "Butch" Davis is an American former professional baseball outfielder and current coach. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1983 through 1994.
In Major League Baseball, a player to be named later (PTBNL) is an unnamed player involved in exchange or "trade" of players between teams. The terms of a trade are not finalized until a later date, most often following the conclusion of the season.
Lawrence Columbus "Crash" Davis was an American professional baseball player whose name inspired that of the main character of the 1988 movie Bull Durham.
Dale A. Petroskey is the current President and CEO of the Dallas Regional Chamber. He is the former Executive Vice President of Marketing for the Texas Rangers baseball club, a former executive of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and the National Geographic Society, and a former political appointee in the administration of United States President Ronald Reagan.
The 54th New York Film Critics Circle Awards honored the best filmmaking of 1988. The winners were announced on 15 December 1988 and the awards were given on 15 January 1989.
The Natural is a 1984 American sports film based on Bernard Malamud's 1952 novel of the same name, directed by Barry Levinson, and starring Robert Redford, Robert Duvall, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger, Wilford Brimley, Barbara Hershey, Robert Prosky and Richard Farnsworth. Like the novel, the film recounts the experiences of Roy Hobbs, an individual with great "natural" baseball talent, spanning the decades of Roy's career. In direct contrast to the novel, the film ends on a positive tone. It was the first film produced by TriStar Pictures.
American actor and filmmaker Tim Robbins started his acting career in 1982 with a few episodes on the medical drama series St. Elsewhere. His film debut was in the 1984 action film Toy Soldiers. He had minor roles in Fraternity Vacation (1985) and Top Gun (1986) before co-starring in the 1988 romantic comedy sports film Bull Durham with Kevin Costner. He went on to star in the films Erik the Viking with Mickey Rooney (1989), Jacob's Ladder with Elizabeth Peña (1990), Cadillac Man with Robin Williams, and The Player with Greta Scacchi (1992). In 1994, he portrayed Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption with Morgan Freeman. To prepare for his role, he spent time in solitary confinement. He also appeared in the 2000 comedy film High Fidelity with John Cusack. In 2003, he co-starred in Clint Eastwood's neo-noir crime drama film Mystic River with Sean Penn. For that role, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture.
American actor, director, and producer Kevin Costner started his acting career in 1981 by starring in the romantic comedy independent film Sizzle Beach, U.S.A. He went on to appear in the films Testament (1983), and Shadows Run Black (1984) before co-starring in the 1985 ensemble western film Silverado alongside Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, and Danny Glover. The same year, he starred in the comedy film Fandango with Judd Nelson, as well as American Flyers with David Marshall Grant. In 1987, Costner starred as Eliot Ness in the crime film The Untouchables with Robert De Niro and Sean Connery. The following year, he starred as Crash Davis in the romantic comedy sports film Bull Durham with Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. The film is on AFI's 10 Top 10 for Greatest Sports Movies. Costner then starred in the sports fantasy drama film Field of Dreams with James Earl Jones. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, and was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Original Score and Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2017, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It is also on AFI's 10 Top 10 for Greatest Fantasy Movies.
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