Rituals. Bull Durham—from which our scene is taken today—is less about baseball than it is about superstition.
Think about it. Baseball is a kid's game. These are adults playing a kid's game. So, of course, they're going to over-complicate it. A horse doesn't think about the stakes when he's brought out to the starting gate. It just wants to have a good run.
But, something starts to mess things up when you throw in that "winning isn't everything; it's the only thing" voodoo. Pro-athletes are like that thoroughbred horse at the starting gate. They're where they are because they're in good shape and they're good at what they do. But, that doesn't always produce desired results. Everyone's at the "top of their game." But, "the game" may not go the way they want to. Look at the stats—the best hitters in the league fail 70% of the time.
The fact that we're keeping stats means that we're looking at "the long game" and that's where the most famous superstition comes in—"the streak"—when the law of averages turns in your favor. Then, the pressure's on. And that pressure also influences the game because it influences the players.
Don't judge. You have your rituals, too, you in that favorite sports cap and team colors. You, who don't go to the game because "they always lose when I go." As if that has anything to do with it.
The professionals do that, too. The exercises, the warm-up's, the diet, the HGH. Keeping constant the monitoring of "signs" from the body, the tell-tale twinge, the warning ache, the fatigue. That's why I don't gripe when an athlete heeds their signs—when Simone Biles notices that "something's off" in that balance of "the zone" when the physics of momentum in blind free-fall might not stick the landing. Or—and this is controversial—when an athlete won't take a vaccine because they don't know what it might do to the very instrument they depend on to trust. It's just one more unknown in the many things you check on to ward off the six months of "maybe."
So, may unknowables to be afraid of. Except the things that are certain—that time is an enemy, and things at "peak performance" have nowhere to go but down.
It's all part of The Game. The Show.
The Magic.
Bull Durham is about superstition. It's just the setting is baseball.
Setting's are good....
The Wind-Up: It's not been a good season for the minor league Durham Bull's: they have a new rookie pitcher "Nuke" LaLoosh (Tim Robbins), who thinks he knows everything and knows nothing. Minor League vet "Crash" Davis (Kevin Costner) knows a lot and seen a few things (even though he can't get to "The Show" of the Big Leagues), so, he's been assigned to "mentor" the rook. And, as with every year, substitute teacher Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) picks out one player for stud, her own form of mentoring. Except the Bulls seem to be winning, which is unusual and particularly vexing for Annie.
Play ball!
Nuke on the mound.
CUT TO:
INSIDE THE DUGOUT -- Skip and Larry spitting tobacco.
-[crowd groans] -
NUKE
Damn.
CUT TO:
INSIDE THE DUGOUT --
LARRY
He says his chakras are jammed. He's having
trouble breathing out of his, uh,
BENCHWARMER Right eyelid.
-
CRASH
Jack, give me the ball.
UMPIRE Time out!
CRASH IS QUICKLY to the mound.
{woman on PA] Up to the plate, Junior Shockley.
NUKE
He's right behind home plate.
They both look.
P.O.V. NUKE'S FATHER SITTING in a special box seat. The
man is 45, and is operating a home video camera taking
pictures of his son.
CRASH
Look, he's waving.
TOMMY AND DEKE JOIN THEM at the mound.
NUKE
Shut up.
-
NUKE
Yep.
-
DEKE They got engaged! Can you believe that?
JOSE THE FIRST BASEMAN JOINS THEM ALL at the mound.
[man] Come on! Play ball!
-
CUT TO:
THE DUGOUT -- SKIP AND LARRY watch the growing meeting.
[woman] Hurry up!
DEKE That's right.
Words by Ron Shelton
Pictures by Bobby Byrne and Ron Shelton
Bull Durham is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from from M-G-M Home Entertainment and the Criterion Collection.
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