“Three Strikes, You’re Out” : A Review of Bull Durham

I decided to start watching baseball movies in order to get myself ready for the fast-approaching MLB opening day. I am a huge Cubs fan (haha very funny, I know it has been over a hundred years). While Joey and I share a plethora of common interests, baseball is not one of them (he claims to be a fan of the hometown MILB Indianapolis Indians). Growing up, baseball was never my best sport, but there is something about it that just rings true with my soul (this led me to create possibly the greatest slow-pitch softball team of all time, The Revolution, feel free to comment below if you agree). It’s America’s pastime. It has a history richer than any other sport. Part of that history is my beloved Wrigley Field (sorry Joey, it's better than Victory field). Say what you will about the seats, the lack of a replay screen, and the obstructed view seats, but few things in sports rival going to a game on a sunny summer afternoon in Chicago. If you get the chance to sit in the bleachers with the “bums,” I can guarantee that it will be one you will never forget.

So I find myself in late February with my Wildcats shooting themselves in the foot, and the Winter Olympics wrapping up…and I’m jonesin’ for some baseball. To satisfy my craving, I recently went on Netflix (if you don’t have it, you’re missing out) and added any baseball movie I had heard of to the top of my queue. I also decided that to kick off the season I would write a blog entry about my Top 5 all-time favorite baseball films. But before I made my list I wanted to make sure that I had seen the best baseball that Hollywood had to offer.

My quest began with Bull Durham (1988) starring Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon. My plan was to watch a handful of the films that I hadn’t seen, then rank them with the ones I had seen, and make my entry. However, it is extremely safe to say this one won’t make the cut. On the contrary, it would probably make my all-time worst sports movies list.

This ‘romantic comedy’ is neither romantic nor comedic. The premise is that Annie Savoy (Sarandon) is the baseball version of a gym rat, her favorite team being the minor league Durham Bulls. Each season she chooses one player who she will sleep with for the duration of the year. This magically propels that player to a great year. Costner’s character, Crash Davis, is a worn out catcher who has been assigned to help Nuke Laloosh (Tim Robbins), a young gun with a laser-rocket arm, develop into a major league pitcher. Annie chooses Laloosh to be her lucky man, but soon finds out that she really wants Crash. Laloosh eventually makes it to ‘the show’ and Crash and Annie get together. That’s the entire plot. I swear that I left nothing out.

Besides a little but of a minor league/major league dynamic and some ornate baseball prose from Sarandon as narrator, this movie is more about sex than about baseball. There are multiple scenes that will make you feel flat out awkward. Call me sexist, but the idea that Annie could sit in the stands, diagnose, and fix technical problems with the players’ fundamentals seems a tad far-fetched. The romance consists of Costner and Sarandon not liking each other then hooking up in multiple settings for over five straight minutes of the film at the end of the movie. As for comedy, the only time I laughed was when I literally exclaimed “what are we watching!” (I watched it with my housemate Jos. A. Bank, shoutout to Joe). The best part of the movie is a 20 second Costner monologue when, among other things, he says “I believe there should be a Congressional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter,.” (I couldn't agree more). His character, is aptly named, because like car crash aftermath, you just had to keep watching.

I have been told on multiple occasions that this is a baseball classic. Not only is it an awful film, but it also cheapens baseball. So to recap: strike 1-bad plot, strike 2-not about baseball, strike 3-terrible ending. Not what I was looking for out of my leadoff hitter.


Keep checking back for my Top 5 all-time baseball movies list. Also, don’t forget to subscribe with the RSS feed and to also follow us on Twitter. If there is a movie that you want to see, but have reservations, or just one that you want to hear our opinions about, just shoot us a request at clawandnussreviews@gmail.com and we’ll see what we can do for you (no Emily, you can’t just request a chick flick so that I have to watch it with you, nice try). Thanks for reading, and be sure to tell your friends about us.

Hold on…yup, fat lady’s singing. It’s over.



-Nuss