Posts tagged as:

Bull Durham

Those are the “traditional names” for the 20th and 35th anniversaries. As mentioned in the BBS post from Friday, we are celebrating two “milestones” in baseball pop culture. Moneyball gets china for marking the 20th since its publication. Doesn’t it seem like we’ve been hearing about that for a lot longer? Friday’s entry refers to […]

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As I mention in the Conversation, when I went to Yankee Fantasy Camp in 2009, I found out the coach of my team would be Ron Shelton. How cool was that? But when I asked him about Bull Durham, he told me he wasn’t that Ron Shelton. I hope my disappointment wasn’t too evident. Readers of […]

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A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish posting them). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes. In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast […]

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Times marches on

June 17, 2022

One of these days I have to ask publicists, “what goes into getting a book reviewed in The New York Times” or something like the New York Review of Books? Numbers vary as to how many books are published every year. One figure I’ve seen puts it at 4,000,000, another more than 3,00,000 but that […]

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Getting closer (hopefully) to pitchers and catchers reporting but there’s still time to catch a good baseball movie. Or a bad one, depending on your point of view. The folks at MLB’s website are offering their choices on various themes. In this entry, they seek to answer the question, “Which baseball film has the best […]

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Because you can keep a viewing device on your bookshelf. In the most recent episode, “The Fresh Princ-ipal,” the “B” story involves the eponymous hero, suddenly being unable to flip hamburgers in his shop after his friend and frequent customer, Teddy, asks about his technique. Bob’s wife, Linda, asks “What’s going on? Bob, what did […]

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It’s a fine line. I am in the early stages of watching Knuckleball!, the 2012 documentary about the “trick pitch” and its practitioners by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg. So far I’m really enjoying every aspect of it: the cinematography, the special effects, the music. But what has taken the total bloom off the rose […]

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Time-honored cliches

June 15, 2011

“There’s no tomorrow, so it’s one of those things where you go out there and leave nothing in the tank.” That was Boston Red Sox third baseman Kevin Youkilis. And virtually every athlete you will talk to about a Game 7 will say some variation of the same thing. So while we’re on the subject […]

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Crossing Jordan?

August 27, 2010

Haven’t seen too many of ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary series, but happened on this one while flipping through the dial. Jordan Rides the Bus is a nifty piece by Ron (Bull Durham) Shelton that takes a studied look at Michael’s days as member of the Birmingham Barons, a minor team in the Chicago White […]

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In this article on the Atlanta Braves’ Brian Barton, the write pretty much brands the ballplayer an egghead. Last summer, during his first full season in the major leagues, he read 17 books. He recently finished off the 900-page “Roots” by Alex Haley. Which made me think of this line from Bull Durham by Max […]

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An amazing piece of cinematic coincidence. Now compare that scene with the one in Costner’s Academy Award-winning Dances With Wolves in which his character, John Dunbar, and his drover, Timmons (the late Robert Pastorelli), argue abut the sagicity of remaining at Fort Sedgewick. The dialog is provided by script-o-rama.com: Timmons: There ain’t nothing here, Lieutenant. […]

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That's Bull

November 14, 2008

With rumors of a sequel to Bull Durham running around, I thought I’d take this opportunity to vent about something that’s been bugging me for awhile. I recently watched the movie for the umpteenth time  and one scene in particular always makes me scratch my head. It takes place in the night game in which […]

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In this corner, Kevin Costner. And in this corner, Kevin Costner. And the winnah, according to the Angels blog on the OC Register Web site, is ___.

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This interesting piece from InsideHighered.com on how Bull Durham serves as a metaphor for the academic world. My classes have come to a close for another year while professional baseball is finding its summer stride. I have come to see that my classes over the span of a semester are a lot like a baseball […]

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Has it really been 20 years? ESPNthemag.com has a five-part retrospective, featuring interviews with director Ron Shelton and actors Tim Robbins and Kevin Costner.    

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Kevin Costner on baseball

November 6, 2007

NPR’s Fresh Air replayed this May 2007 interview with Costner to mark the release of his latest movie, Mr. Brooks, on DVD. The interviewer is with Dave Davies. Costner discusses his love for the game (not coincidentally the title of his trilogy of baseball films; and no, The Upside of Anger, in which he plays […]

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