The following is an excerpt from the upcoming book by Kyle Bandujo (host of Baseball America’s “From Phenom To The Farm” Podcast) “Movies With Balls: The Greatest Sports Movies of All Time Reviewed and Featured,” from Quirk Books and Penguin Random House, published on September 24, 2024. This book offers highlights, MVPs and deep dives into 26 of the best sports movies of all time, highlighted by images including tickets and game maps. We start with the classic “Bull Durham” by Ron Shelton.
Bull Durham
Movie
You don’t have to be a minor league baseball player to make a great baseball movie, but it sure doesn’t hurt. 1988 classic baseball movie Bull Durhamwriter, director, and former Orioles coach Ron Shelton brought the baseball league to the big screen. A season with the Class A Durham Bulls of the Carolina League served as the backdrop for the story of an aging minor league catcher who mentors a young novice – and a woman between see.
There is little doubt that Shelton’s baseball career gave the film authenticity. The actors, led by Kevin Costner (who played the late Crash Davis), spoke and acted like real football players. When you watch it decades later, you still feel like you’re in a little league stadium, when you’re actually seeing the manager calling his team of lollygaggers while standing in the shower.
Game
There’s an old baseball saying: you can’t score every run if you don’t score first, and. Bull Durham puts a crooked number with Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh’s (Tim Robbins) professional game to open the film. Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) opens a monologue about the Church of Baseball, then walks into Durham Athletic Park to watch the first game of Durham’s $100,000 bonus baby and pitcher right hand.
Bull Durham it relies more on moments than full games, but its the first Nuke game that forms our foundation: Million dollar hand, ten cent head.
Separation
In this first episode of the film, Costner’s Davis has not appeared – this game is LaLoosh’s show. Fresh off a six-man signing bonus (probably in Atlanta, since Durham was the Braves’ farm team at the time), Nuke didn’t take his first start seriously. Robbins plays him perfectly—as a happy-go-lucky man-child who goes through life without a care in the world because things always go right for him—and often doesn’t think deeply enough to care.
After avoiding a pre-match warm-up, he assures his disinterested boss that he’s good to go. It’s a sign of perfection from Shelton–one of the few bits of authenticity presented in the entire film that underlines its understanding of baseball. It’s true that Nuke thinks he’s good to go—he’s just finished his last four years of high school eyeing future accountants and salespeople who are terrified of his heat.
To Nuke’s credit, people still fear his heat, even in pro ball. The problem is that it’s not just the hitters. Fans, announcers, and even mascots can become collateral damage with LaLoosh on the mound. It’s a wild game, made all the more comical by the way Robbins throws the baseball. Costner looks like a seasoned professional, while Robbins casts like someone is asking a baby deer to paint corners. In a film full of perfection, even the imperfect Robbins seemed to work, well, perfectly. In fact, a young, careless young man who put a fan in the first game room would faint as a surprise.
Nuke manages not to leave his fastball “in the ass,” but he leaves it anywhere at Durham Athletic Park. Eighteen walks and eighteen strikes later, Durham manager Joe Riggins (Trey Wilson) is sitting in his office, looking like he just saw God. Although Nuke’s performance would have caused the Durham system to double their defensive rating, LaLoosh was also dropping hitters. Sitting down opposing batters with such power is important—we know right away if Nuke can use his stuff, he’ll have the world by a thread, but if he can’t, he’ll break those ribs. more than pork rubber.
The game itself isn’t important to the grand plot of baseball — early-season A-ball games rarely happen — but it’s a flawless jumping-off point for the movie. With a few wild numbers, some sneak peeks, and his manager’s post-match review, we learn some key facts about Nuke:
- His right hand is unique, perhaps one of a kind. That his last five kicks were faster than the first five (especially considering the number of kicks thrown) is Herculean.
- Any sign given by that right hand can damage property or person.
- To put it mildly, Nuke was dumb—but just a dumb guy—not hopelessly dumb. Annie later says “he’s not weak, but he’s inexperienced.” Yes, the guy who doesn’t know anything.
- It will be fun to watch this idiot try to put electricity in a bottle.
The MVP game
It’s LaLoosh, and no other player comes close. Robbins dives in—from the get-go, Nuke is a man on an island, just a kid who’s scared to death, hanging on by a howitzer attached to his body. His frustration after sailing into unsuspecting victims says more about Nuke’s preparation for pro ball than any discussion in the area.
Honorable Mentions: Skip Riggins, Teddy Broadcaster, pregame locker room
Was He Good at His Job?: Joe “Skip” Riggins
Trey Wilson’s Joe “Skip” Riggins was a treasure on screen. His old angry words about lollygagging still live on today, and he was one of the greatest cigarette smokers in sports movie history. Look at that guy smoking a Marlboro, he’s flawless.
However, when it came to managing the work of the best hand he had seen in three decades, Riggins made some questionable decisions. Admittedly, the 1980s were a different time when it came to numbers, and “innings limit” may also be considered an insult. But even taking this into account, the career endured by LaLoosh and his million dollar arm during his prime would have had old timers like Cy Young shaking their heads in disbelief.
His league records of 18 home runs and hits put LaLoosh at least 126 pitches per game (no MLB pitcher has more than 100.8 through the 2022 season). He conservatively estimates that even half of the at-bats resulted in two extra base hits on a meager 162 runs. It is unlikely that LaLoosh threw the six innings needed to get -eighteen punchouts, so assuming Skip moved the bull. 9th and extra two innings out of two pitches in a plate appearance, LaLoosh is sitting at a tidy 174, at least. In a 2022 podcast appearance, Shelton estimated a total of over 175.
Why Riggins sent his organization’s significant investment out of hand is difficult enough. Maybe the excitement and fear from the zip of LaLoosh’s fastball got him into trouble. His voice expressing Nuke’s hand to Crash in the latest game is filled with incredible fear—perhaps it was hard to pull off a guy throwing lightning bolts on a mound.
At the end of the day, it’s the minor league manager’s job to help get the ballplayer ready for the big leagues. What Riggins did. I think you can’t dispute the results.
Skip Riggins: He’s good at his job.
“Films With Balls: The Greatest Sports Movies of All Time Reviewed and Showcased” is published on 9/24/24, and is available for pre-order on Amazon.
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