Bull Durham (1988)

This one's a total cutie. America's two favorite pastimes, baseball and sex, combine in Bull Durham, a delightful romantic comedy with a real-life happy ending.Susan Sarandon, in her totally adorable heyday, plays a baseball groupie with a tradition of having an affair with a different player of the Durham Bulls each season. This season, the lucky man has been chosen, but what happens when a new, handsome, charming, sexy coach shows up and throws a wrench in her plans? What a love triangle! Susan Sarandon torn between Tim Robbins and Kevin Costner—get ready for some steamy scenes! And how darling is this: Susan and Tim became real-life sweetie-pies during this movie and became one of the most famous acting couples in America.Between Susan's adorable North Carolina accent and a smart, sexy, and hilarious script, Bull Durham is a must-see. Just make sure to put the kiddies to bed first.Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to some pretty steamy sex scenes and language, I wouldn't let my kids watch it.

"Bull Durham" was released in 1988. It was written and directed by Ron Shelton, who knew his way around an American baseball field, and runs the bases in a swift, witty 108 minutes. It stars Kevin Costner, in what may be the first of his successful sports-themed movies, Susan Sarandon, and a young Tim Robbins, at the outset of his career. It happily combines romantic comedy and baseball: many people still consider this the best movie about the boys of summer. Costner plays a veteran catcher brought in to mentor a talented but wild young pitcher (Robbins). Sarandon plays a teacher and baseball fan that takes one player under her wing (and into her bed) every year, and provides her own baseball wisdom, coaching and life experience!The director, Ron Shelton does a superb job of bringing this story to life and hopefully satisfying the sports fan and rom-com addict at the same time. Full of some great, witty dialogue and earthy one- liners, this film does have its share of sex and bad language (it is rated 18) so be prepared for that, but it plays with a very natural and fun feeling to it. The most surprising thing to me though is that this isn't necessarily a baseball movie. Sure, the sport in question is baseball, but it could be any other sport, with a young upcomer (Robbins) being coached by experienced veterans (Costner and Sarandon), and the unconventional coaching methods that might be used. Especially by Sarandon's character. Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

I don't even know where to start on this one. I mean, when I was in college I picked a crap apartment because it was in walking distance of a few of my favorite bars. Now that I am almost 40, just turned 37, I picked my last apartment because it was across the street from a very active softball diamond.I don't have kids, but that has never stopped me from going to high school and little league baseball games just to spend an afternoon in the summer watching baseball.For anyone that has their soul crushed time and again because they had the misfortune of being raised in the cult of the Cubs...or I guess the Red Sox too, you already know the peace it brings when you get to watch a game whose outcome you don't really care about.The minors have that appeal as well, at least when you live in a major northern city. But up here minor league games are often hard to find.And, in 1988 they made a movie about minor league baseball.Not only that, but they summed up a lot of the pure obsession we have for the sport.In fact, "Bull Durham" opened with it."I believe in the Church of Baseball. I've tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance." I could never throw a baseball well, I could never get my body to move in that awkward way, so I played football instead. A football I could throw no problem, but it was a sport I never really watched. It was always baseball I tuned into. It was baseball I loved. It was baseball I cared about.It even got to the point where, after Sosa and McGwire in '98, I tried to stop, to shake that monkey off my back only to be relieved, 3 years later, when Bonds stole that honor away from the Cardinals...a team that I hold an irrational hatred towards for reasons only baseball fans can really explain."Bull Durham," explains ALL of that, the love, the hate, the euphoria, the deep depressions, and that affirmation of life in a way that lovingly mocks it all.It feeds into the psyche of every baseball fan in a way the "Field of Dreams" and the "Sandlot" appealed to the child and the sense of perpetual summer in all of us.It makes you laugh and it does it with wit and it's own little wisdoms.Not only that, but it brings baseball to life for everyone, fans and laymen alike.It's a masterpiece of comedy and a must see for any addict of the sport.

A lot of the reviewers on here really liked this movie. And I certainly grant you: it's a fun movie, and an enjoyable one.But after having watched it again tonight, I was left with the feeling that it really doesn't have much of anything to do with baseball. Tim Robbins' character gets called up to the majors, yes. But we don't see any transformation in his pitching, any explanation or demonstration of how he went from a guy with no control to a guy with enough control to merit a call from the majors.Nor do we get much sense of what it's like to be a minor league player, what it's like to live in that world, etc. (No, most of them don't get to sleep with the Susan Sarrandons of this world.) Her character is presented as quirky, and so funny. But we never really see what she sees in baseball, either.Kostner's character, who has been kicking around in the minors for a decade, never expresses what that's like.We get a lot of funny sexcapes, and that's all well and good.But this movie really hasn't got much to do with baseball.