It's Not Bull
Amazon Prime recently put up for viewing the 1986 vintage movie about minor league baseball, Bull Durham. It’s been almost 40 years since I saw a young Kevin Costner, Tim Robbins and an older Susan Sarandon work their magic. And magic it was. I can’t remember smiling the entire time watching a movie, short of Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein. I did so last night again by watching Bull Durham, which Sports Illustrated ranked as the best sports movie of all time. That is high praise. Why?
The movie superficially tells a story about the struggles of AAA baseball players trying to get to the “show,” the major league. Costner plays an older catcher who got to the major league before being tossed back down to AAA. Robbins plays an egoistic prodigy, barely past his teenage years, who throws with heat but has no control. He hits the strike zone along with the baseball clown, the mascot, the ballboy, people in the stands, and so on. The expressions on Robbins’s face are hysterical when he misses the plate so egregiously.
Sarandon, in the most erotic performance I’ve seen in cinema, plays a “cougar” who each season chooses and seduces one young Durham Bull team player to first, teach him how to “ball” women in bed, and then play better baseball on the field.
Sarandon’s character knows the game better than the coaches. At one point, she has Robbins towear skimpy black lace panties under his uniform to make him not overthink his pitches. On the field, he squirms in the panties with embarrassment, contorts his style in the way she wanted him to do, and then throws a no-hitter. Hysterical again.
Little moments like this fill the film, which beautifully and compassionately deals with life’s challenges, what really matters, and what constitutes reality. It is a Zen movie for a Zen game.
I have never been much of a baseball fan because I find it, like golf, slow and far too, well, cerebral. I played basketball, tennis and now pickleball instead to not give me time to get into my head and think about what I am going to do when the time comes to do it.
Consider a pitcher facing a batter. He takes 15 seconds or so to stare the guy down, decide what to throw, and in front of lots of people, tries to get a strike. The batter in turn stares back at the mound, trying to psyche out the pitcher before he throws and also figure out what kind of pitch it might be.
It’s hard to hit a baseball thrown with heat. If a batter “only” misses 2 out of 3 times, he’s a giant in his profession, batting 333. Would you be a giant in law if you lost 2 out of 3 of your cases? Or a doctor if you misdiagnosed 2 out of 3 of your patients. Or a chef if you burned 2 out of 3 of your dishes? I don’t think so.
Then there’s the guy in the right field. He paces around most of the time waiting for someone, anyone, to hit him a ball to catch. And if he misses the chance he gets, he’s quite the goat.
All baseball players, as do golfers, have too much time to think about screwing up and that’s the real topic what Bull Durham addresses. How do you find ways to not overthink but just experience and do. It’s Zen thinking.
Sarandon and Costner both apply in ways that are delightful to see to clean up their lives and get Robbins to the major league Bull Durham fundamentally teaches the lesson that you do your best when you do it for yourself or others, but not to get accolades in the end. It’s an needed antidote for today’s societal values; to be an “influencer” on social media like Tik Tok, need instantly know what everyone is doing through Facebook and Instagram, and the self-aggrandizement and puffery of politicians on both sides of the isle.
Is Bull Durham movie only a Hallmark Greeting Card in motion? Something that gives palliative trite solace? No, I don’t think so. Just like the series Ted Lasso was not a hallmark card. Both made me realize again that I need more of the s.l.o.w.n.e.s.s of baseball (or golf), time off from the difficulties of life. I’m too old to learn to play golf, and my legs won’t allow me to indulge in softball.
Maybe I’ll catch a minor league baseball game, something I used to do in Syracuse. Here in the DC area, we have two major league fields waiting for me. The minor league capture the heart and spirit of the sport better. Young players in the minors mostly strive for excellence for the love of the game and don’t expect to earn millions, and do so by trying to find ways to let the noise in their minds disappear. If only every one had a Susan Sarandon. Or me, for that matter.
Instead I’ll meditate, walk in the woods, and play slow ballads on my guitar.
Check out the movie again. You will like it or my name is mud.