Texas Rangers: Sport DFW’s Top-5 Baseball Movies
By Reid Hanson
No. 5: Bull Durham, 1988
Bull Durham, a story about the Durham Bulls, is equal parts locker room life, sex, and baseball. With plenty of lowbrow comedy speckled throughout, this was the quintessential ‘80s movie.
It’s the story about an aging veteran, Crash Davis, nearing the end of his career. Experience has made him wise and jaded. He takes on a mentor roll to the loveable young idiot, Nuke Laloosh. Add in the team cougar, Annie, and you have a comedic sports movie with a love triangle.
Bull Durham was as much of a hit in 1988 as it is today. Robin Hood (Kevin Costner) and Andy Dufresne (Tim Robins) share some of the funniest conversations of the movie. Some even taking place on the mound.
Kevin Costner’s monologue is one of the best all-time and ranks right up there with Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. Bull Durham isn’t a family movie, by any means, but it’s a movie for all types whether you like baseball or not.
Regardless of what you think of Kevin Costner, you have to appreciate his baseball movies. Three of his movies were discussed in this exercise: Field of Dreams, Love of the Game, and Bull Durham. In those movies he played a fan, a veteran pitcher, and a catcher. While this was the highest ranking of the Costner movies, one could safely say that Kevin Costner is to baseball movies as Jason Statham is to driving movies.