Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to the Surely Can't Be Serious podcast,
discussing and debating the iconic and the forgotten of eighties
and nineties pop culture with your co hosts James D.
Graves and Jason Colban.
Speaker 2: Okay, welcome back to baseball and podcast fans. We are
here for our second episode on Bull Durham versus Major League.
I'm here with my friend Jason Colvin.
Speaker 3: How you doing?
Speaker 2: How's your wife? And my kids? Love it? All right,
let's dive back into these movies, all right, we ready
to talk about Yeah, let's talk about the Love Ventrest now,
all right, all right, okay, So Bull Durham we have
Annie Savoy played by Susan Sarandon.
Speaker 3: The term in baseball for a groupie. What they call
him to Annie and Savoy has to do with a bat,
the Savoy Special. So Annie Savoy and Susan Saranda got
this part. The studio didn't want to hire her. They
thought she was too old and not sexy enough.
Speaker 2: Right, So they sent her in to talk to the
studio executive wearing a low cut, incredibly tight fitting dress,
and she leaned over his desk for about half an
hour and walked out with the part.
Speaker 3: She she was forty one when she did this movie. Yeah,
also considered for the part of Annie Savoy, Kim Basinger,
Ellen Barkin, Kate Capshaw, Geena Davis, Isabella Russolini, Melanie Griffith,
Kerrie Fisher, every Winger, Shelle Ffifer, Kelly mcchillis Mary Steinbergeon, Blinklose, Kaylin's,
and Pamela Stevenson.
Speaker 2: So every actress in Hollywood was considered this director. I
think I think Susan Sarandon is the perfect fit for
Annie Savoy. I can't imagine anybody else doing this part.
I would say Renee Russo because they are the two
ladies who I thought got better looking as yours went on.
But Renee Russo at the time that this movie came out,
she didn't have the age for it yet, she wasn't
old enough. I like that. Susan Sarandon is kind of that,
for lack of a better word, cougar, you know, looking
for somebody to manipulate kind of characters. So it really
fit that she was a little bit older than the
player that she's said.
Speaker 3: Absolutely she had to be older wise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sexy, Yeah, you had to have a little bit
of wisdom in the eyes. And I think that of
all of those you know whatever, one hundred and three
actresses that you just mentioned, that she was the one
that had the right wisdom about her face.
Speaker 3: Could you see Princess Leah as Annie Savoy?
Speaker 2: No, No, it would have been weird.
Speaker 3: We always like to imagine the alternate universe where we
have Kurt Russell, Anthony Michael Hall, and say Ellen Barkin
as Annie. It's a totally different movie.
Speaker 2: Oh so, the love interest in Major League is played
by Renee Russo. Character's name is Lynn Wells. Renee Russo
is actually pretty well a newcomer when this movie came out.
She was not wietly in the first movie. She had
done a couple of little things before this, but this
was her first major motion picture, and she went on
to do a ton of stuff, including one of your favorites,
Leath the Weapon three and four.
Speaker 3: Right Thor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was mother to Thor and then she was
also in ten Cup with Kevin Costner from Bull Durham.
Speaker 3: Oh that's right, I knew that, but I don't know
why I didn't make the connection. Have you ever seen
the Thomas Crown affair?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and hello, get in that Google search. And so
here's my question for you. Let's talk about each of
these movies separately. But is the love story necessary? Because
we're talking about baseball movies here, right, and so why
do we have a love story? I mean, like Tombstone,
Like the movie Tombstone is, it's a western, why the
heck are we having a love story in it? You
get rid of that whole love story and it's a
better movie as good as it already is. So here's
my question for Major League. Is the love story necessary?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: I agree with you. I love Renee Russo. I love
the part that she plays in this She's gorgeous to
look at. But I think you can get rid of
the love story and it's still a great movie. It's
just kind of a way of showing how Jake Taylor
is trying to get his life back together, and that's
about it. On the flip side of that, if you
get rid of the love story, you don't have the
scene in the attorney's apartment in the fiance's apartment, and
I think that is one of the best scenes in
the movie.
Speaker 3: Is a professional baseball that scene? So he intrudes upon
a dinner party that's already happening, and he joins the
conversation and she says, wow, you play baseball. Huh where
do you play? And he's like, well here in Cleveland.
She's like, they still have a team.
Speaker 2: Yeah, have uniforms and everything.
Speaker 3: And she said, I hear the ballplayers make great money.
And he said, well, that depends on how good you are.
And she said how good are you? He said, I
make the league minimum at that time, in nineteen eighty nine,
the league minimum sixty eight thousand dollars, right, The average
sellary in America thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Right, So you making it twice. Yeah, that's not a
bad gig in the late eighties. Okay, So to the
to the love story in Bull Durham. Is the love story,
love triangle thing necessary for this movie?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 2: Absolutely agree, for sure. I think it makes the movie
because the love story between Susan Sarandon and Nuke is
not really the love story. It is this kind of
he is just kind of this middle figure in the
love story between Crash and Annie.
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right. The fact that Annie and Crash
end up together is the whole arc of the story.
That's where we're going. And they're made for each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, you've got two wise folks who love
the game of baseball who are just you know, looking
to make it one more time, right.
Speaker 3: I want to bring me Okay. The movie Bull Durham
was shot in October and November of nineteen eighty seven. Yes,
there's tons of scenes where you're watching you can see
their breath.
Speaker 2: It's supposed to be the hottest summer on record, but it's.
Speaker 3: The announcer says it's the hottest summer on record. And
yet Crash takes his catcher's mask off in a scene
and he's steaming right right, and then you can see
their breath. The nightmare scene where Nuke is on the
mound and he's pitching and nothing but his jockstrap yeah,
and the garter, yeah, and the garters. Tim Robbins said,
I was freezing cold and they had to put they
luved him up with something that made him greasy because
I was freezing death.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was supposed to be sweaty, but he's just
had vaseline all over.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So another scene in the movie is the scene where
they're so exhausted and they're just like, we just need
a night off, and Crash is like, I can get
your rain out, and they're like, there's not a cloud
in the sky, goes bet you one hundred dollars, I
can get your rain out. And then they go and
the drunk the drunk playing that they're doing, I mean,
if that's acting, if they're not actually drinking, they did
a phenomenal job because they look trashed. So that what
that happens in the movie is they set the sprinklers
off or to flood the field, right, and they get
the rein out. Well, this is based on something that
actually happened to Ron Shelton when he was in the
minor leagues. They were down in Texas. They were actually
hanging out and partying with some of the Amarillo players,
and they decided they didn't want to play the next day,
and so they went down and they did the exact
same thing. They set off the sprinkler system, totally flood
to the field. The only problem was the Amarillo owner
happened to have access to a helicopter, and so he
flew the helicopter over there and dried the field out
and they still had to play completely hung over the
next day.
Speaker 3: Ron Sheldon said, So they went and turned on the
sprinklers and the scene was supposed to kind of end
there with the all the ball players kind of around,
and Kevin Costner was like, you know what I would
do if I was in I'd run and go dive
in the dirt. And he's like, well, it's freezing cold.
If you want to do it, I'll film it. So
they set it up and that was kind of all
on Kevin Costner, and that really makes the scene. The joy,
the boyish joy of sliding around the dirt.
Speaker 2: You know, right, it's a game. Have fun, supposed to
be fun.
Speaker 3: It's fun.
Speaker 2: Gds he know about having fun. I'm young, I'm yelling fun.
Speaker 3: So there's a ritual that Annie passes a note back
and forth to the dugout a couple of times. Yeah,
once she tells Nuke that he's not been in his
back enough, and Ron Shelton talks about how they used
to do this all the time. But one of the
times Crash writes a note to Annie, gives it to
the kid, he delivers it to her. Well, Milly reads
it to her right, and she reads it. She says,
what does it say? She said, well, it says, I
want to make love to you. Crash Well, if you
watch what he writes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna say I saw it, that's not
what he wrote.
Speaker 3: Now he writes, let's sometime. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, good good job for Milly for editing that one.
There's an unsung hero there. Milly, I think, is just
a sweet little piece of this movie. She's just so
enjoyable and genuinely comfortable with herself. And I love I
love Milly in this movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah I did too. Ron Shelton said that she was
very popular among the actors because of her looks so
right at the very beginning, when Nuke and Crash Meat,
they were both at a bar and Annie turns and
she looks and she says, who is that? And he's like, well,
that's the young picture. He said, Who's who's he dancing with?
And she says all of them? I think. So he
has this dance scene where he's dancing with all these girls.
Speaker 2: Right choreography, And she was supposed to she she was like,
I thought I was going to have two lines out
of this, and Ron Sheldon's like, I never agree to that,
and she flipped right on out.
Speaker 3: She flipped out, he said, the last time you saw
she was walking out screaming.
Speaker 2: But I mean, really looking at that scene, at the
dancing that's going on, was there really choreography that? I
mean that looked like the worst dancing I've ever seen?
How did Paula Abdul choreograph that bit?
Speaker 3: I love this Kevin Coustner. I saw he was talking
to Dan Patrick when he stepped up to hit for
the first time. Right, he's in uniform, and you know,
he's the big movie star and he's out there with
all these guys who can play baseball, a lot of
minor league players, a lot of college level players who
were out there as extras and stuff. And so he
said it was batting practice. And the first time he swung,
he swung and missed. The second time he swung and
it was a line drive that he said, it fell
in like a limp.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Then the third one he hit out of the ball
bark nice. And so he said, the first two he
was like, oh no, and then when he hit that
third one, he was like, oh, thank you.
Speaker 2: You know right well. And they did get local college
players to be the extras for the team and for
the opposing teams. But in the stands, they got those
extras from a concert, like they came out of a
Pink Floyd concert. You can see him there wearing Pink
Floyd T shirts out there in the Bulderham stands.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate this about Ron Shelton. So when he
hired actors, he wanted people that had either played baseball
or loved baseball, or both. And as a ballplayer, I
really appreciate that, right. That makes a difference when I
view this movie. Now we'll talk here in a minute.
Whether I think Tim Robbins ever looks like say he
can throw over eighty miles per hour. I don't think
he looks that way. But one of the things he
did when he auditioned actors to play in this movie
is in the interview room he would set a baseball down,
and because people are uncomfortable during the audition process, if
they found something that they were comfortable with, i e.
A baseball, they would go over, pick it up, kind
of rub it, hold it in their hand. I know
that's what I would do. I'd pick up that ball.
Speaker 2: I'd be rubbing it right right. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And he said he didn't even have to audition the
people that picked up a ball because he knew that's
who he's looking for.
Speaker 2: Perfect. That is awesome. So on that note, in Major League,
they got some major league players to be extras in
that movie as well, but some key parts the opponents
for the Yankees, the guy that they called Haywood, was
played by Peter Vukevich. Peter Vukovich was the former pitcher
for the Milwaukee Brewers and never hit a single home
run in his life, had been I'm sorry, in his
major league career. He had never hit a home run.
I don't know about his you know, maybe in little
league or something, but he was barely even on base
because the American League has a designated hitter rule, which
allows them to use a designated hitter.
Speaker 3: That's right, So this guy is not some scrub. This
guy won the nineteen eighty two Cy Young, which is
the highest award you can get as a pitcher. Right,
he was an incredible ballplayer, just wasn't a hitter. But
when you look at him, I mean clearly, I mean
every baseball player at some point growing up, you're a
third baseman and a pitcher, and you hit and you pitch,
and at some point you DEVI eight and you become
what you are. Right when he swings a bat, you
can tell this dude can hit.
Speaker 2: And he was based on the former Yankees catcher Thurman Munson.
He was also featured just kind of in the background
in Bull Durham in a kind of little shrine that
Annie Savoy has. The story was that Annie had a
difficult time, maybe a father's funeral or something like that,
and then went and saw Thurman Munson.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they was supposed to be the backstory to Annie.
They cut all this, but you know how to do
it with a relationship with her dad, and she was
a fan of Thurman Munthson. THURM Mundson was actually killed
in a plane crash. Yankee catcher, well known player.
Speaker 2: Right the last scene, the famous scene where Jake Taylor
calls his shot.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you're not a baseball fan, you may
not be familiar with this. This is something that Babe
Ruth did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anybody who was an adult at that point would
have known that. But yeah, now it is world famous
that Babe Ruth, when he was playing for the Yankees,
called his shot and then hit it.
Speaker 3: And that's that's what that scene is. Playing off of
the fact that you should know, babe. Ruth pointed to
the outfield, like, I'm gonna hit this. Jake Taylor does
the same thing, and you expect that here's this moment
he's going to try and jack this. Yeah, so when
he lays down the buont it's a complete surprise.
Speaker 2: And that's what And it's brilliant too. And they laid
the foundation so well with that scene when they first
arrive at the Major League Stadium and Jake thinks he's
all alone out there on the field and he calls
his shot and smashes it and runs the bases as
though he's hit a home run, and then Willie Mays,
Hayes and Ricky Vaughn are clapping for it.
Speaker 1: He really got a hold of that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was out of here.
Speaker 3: That was out of here, man. One of the things
I thought was interesting about this so Charlie Sheen, I
think is very effective his motions. You can tell this
guy's a ballplayer. And I believed it when they said
he could throw hard because I'm watching him. I'm like, man,
this guy can throw hard. But one of the things
that they did is they moved the pitchers mound to
kind of give the illusion to speed. They moved it
ten feet closer. Yes, so normal baseball mound is sixty
feet six inches from the plate. They moved it ten
feet closer so it looked and then they did a
lot of camera work from behind the catcher. But loved, loved,
loved the scene where he's practicing with that ten fake
baseball player and he throws a pitch and it takes
the guy's head off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome scene before that hits him in the
groin and then the guy falls first.
Speaker 3: Brilliant in real life. Margaret Whitten who plays Rachel Phelps, Yes,
she was a real life Yankee season ticket holder. Oh
he's a baseball fan.
Speaker 2: That's great. Also in real life, the billboard with the
bull offering the free steak for whoever hits it. Yeah,
they actually still have that now. And if it gets
tagged by home run, the batter gets a steak. If
he hits the grass, he gets a free salad.
Speaker 3: I love that, and that was totally created by the
movie Bull Durham.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they loved it so much they kept it.
Speaker 3: In the original trailer for Major League they talk about
how they're all at dinner and Charlie Sheen says, they're
talking about his pitching day, and Jake Taylor says that
ball would not have been out of a lot of parks,
and Ricky Vaughn says, name one, and he says Yellowstone. Right.
Speaker 2: Yes, that was in.
Speaker 3: The trailer, and we all knew it from the trailer.
Speaker 2: But he never made it to the movie exactly.
Speaker 3: But they decided, you know, it was popular enough and
people knew it enough that they actually inserted it into
Major League Tip.
Speaker 2: I think there was probably a bit of an outcry
because that line from the trailer may have been the
reason that a whole lot of people went to go
see that movie in the first place. I mean, it's
just it's a classic line. It's not actually in the movie.
Speaker 3: Why would they cut that's so funny? I don't know
why they would cut that.
Speaker 2: So Also on Bull Durham in the scene where they
go outside when they've met for the first time and
he throws them at baseball and says, hit me with this,
and then he says, I hear you couldn't hit water
if you fell out of a e fing boat. Tommy Lasorda,
the guy who is in manager for the Dodgers, actually
said this in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3: Tommy Lasorda, Tommy.
Speaker 2: Lasorta, I love Tommy Lasorda.
Speaker 3: That's a great line and that scene is so funny.
Oh when they when Crash and Nuke meet for the
first time, they're gonna fight, and Crash is already in
his head from the moment they step outside, Come on meet,
You're starting to think about it already, and how embarrassing
it would be to miss in front of everybody. And
he said, let's see that million dollar arm because I
got a good idea about that five cent head of yours.
Speaker 2: Brilliant, brilliant, so many classic lines and all of these
Also just a quick side note, the costume designer found out,
I mean, Crash Davis is such an awesome character, but
she found out that Ron Shelton's number was the number eight,
and so she made that Crash Davis's number for the movie.
Speaker 3: That's really cool. So I saw or I heard Ron
Shelton talking about they were on a tight budget and
everything that they got costume wise for the actors in
Bull Durham, they got a goodwill.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So Kevin Costner's out fit when they fight, that bomber
jacket khaki's the golf shirt. She basically told John Shelton
to get undressed and give Kevin cost your clothes. Those
were the clothes that he wore. That's his jacket and
his shoes. Yeah, and then he said he sat down
with Tim Robbins and like, Okay, here's what we're going
for with your character. We want a third rate John Travolta. Right.
So they always had any kind of these leisure suits
and rock and Roll T shirts. Tim Robbins was the
one who picked the T shirts, so the Iron Maiden,
the Girls, Girls, Girls, all that he picked those rock
and Roll T shirts, which I secretly love.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's talk about the Let's talk about some
of the more memorable quotes from these two movies.
Speaker 3: You go first, one of the This is not a
very memorable quote, but for whatever reason, my wife and
I say this to each other all the time. Anytime
I look at her and she's like, well, what do
you think about this dress or whatever, and I say, well,
you look cute, she will say back to me, baby,
decks are cute. I want to be exotic and mysterious.
We love that line. We say that all the time
to each other.
Speaker 2: One of the lines that I just grabbed out of
the blue is this son of it is throwing a
two hit shutout and he's shaking me off. Can you
believe this? Yeah, Charlie, here comes the deuce and when
you speak of me, speak well.
Speaker 3: Ron Sheldon said that actually happened to him. The catcher
told him that he was going to throw a curveball,
and he said he was like what, He just couldn't
believe it. And when it happened, the guy threw him
a big, old fat curveball. He said he didn't swing
because he didn't trust the catcher. He didn't believe it.
Speaker 2: That's what I was. I mean, that's the thought I
have it each time that because he does it twice.
He does it twice in the movie, like first, you know,
he wants to announce his a presence with authority and
it's the fastball, and then he does it again when
La Lushah's is excited about his curveball, right yeah.
Speaker 3: And he does that over exaggerated shake off. Yeah, just
quit baseball story.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I grew up playing baseball in high school. I was
on a very good team. We were actually ranked in USA
Today's Top twenty five at one point. Oh, but we
stole signs one time from our opposing team, right.
Speaker 2: Oh, you stile like the Okay, I got you now, Yes,
stole the signal signs. Yes, right.
Speaker 3: So I mean the Houston Astros are in a world
hurt right now because they would steal them electronically and
digitally with a camera and stuff like that. We were
just sitting in the dugout the picture. The opposing pitcher
would look at his coach and the opposite dugout, and
if the coach's legs were straight, it was fastball. If
they were crossed, it was curved, and we picked it up.
And the way we relate it to the hitter was
so if you were up to bad and we said,
come on D, let's go D. Come on D, you're
the best D. That man fastball, we said, let's go
Graves graves, graves, graves graves. That meant curve. And we
destroyed that team that day because we stole their pitches
and they didn't know what had happened. All right, But
another funny moment to me, one of the funniest moments
in the entire movie is when the coach tosses all
the bats in the shower, and he says, then he
went out in the shower in ten seconds, gonna get
fine one hundred dollars. It's brilliants.
Speaker 2: Yes, he's lolligag on the field. Your lolligag off the field.
What does that make them?
Speaker 3: Larry lolligaggersers. Another line from that scene that we quoted
all the time on my baseball team was it's a
simple game. You the ball, you hit the ball, you
catch the ball. Okay, So one of my one of
my favorite lines. Of course we've already mentioned this, but
when Harris says, are you trying to tell me Jesus
Christ can't hit a proobal?
Speaker 2: Dang it, you took mine?
Speaker 3: I think that.
Speaker 2: Maybe that I think that may be the most memorable
line from the movie for sure. In relation to that,
I say a few Joe Boo, I hit the ball myself.
Speaker 3: Actually, the the speech that Charlie Machine gives Loue Brown
after he thinks he's cut just oh yeah, when he
barges into his office flips the chair. His speech is
very controlled. He's like, let me tell you something, mister Brown.
I'm gonna catch on somewhere. And when I pitch against
you every time, I'm gonna up your beep. Right, And
he throws that ball about one thousand miles an hour
at the locker behind him, and of course it turns
out he's being pranked.
Speaker 2: But right, and blue Brown is not sayed at all.
Speaker 3: He doesn't even blink.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that one is very similar to the other
line that I've got here for this one. I'm just
gonna go for it. You ever tank another play like
you did today, and I'm gonna cut off your nuts
and shove him down your throat. Aw. This movie is
just it's so full of the trash talking stuff that
we as guys say to each other all the time.
Both of the movies just chalked full of it.
Speaker 3: I love that about it because it's very real. Right, So,
particularly Bulderham, Well, both of these movies really they take
us where we don't get to go. Right. We go
to the pictures mound, we go to the meeting, we
go to the locker room, you know, we we we
hear the conversations that actually happened, and it's not about baseball.
It's about girls and partying and what things are happening,
you know, Like the Candlesticks scene, or when Dorn goes
out and tells him basically when the whole thing even
though yeah, he just slept with his wife right.
Speaker 2: Right, right, it's got one thing to say to you.
Strike this mother effort out there, you go.
Speaker 3: I like the line in Bull Durham when he's telling
Nuke how to hold a baseball. He's like, hold it
like an egg, right, it's an egg, yes, yes, So
when he comes out he's like, oh, yeah, he scrambled
it too, looking at the effing bull guy gets a
free steak. I love it when he says, uh, man,
anything that goes that far out to have a stewardess
on it, we can quote all night. These movies are
are really truly one of the great quotable movies of
all time. One of the lines in Major League when
he says, the guys in the stands are like, it's
too high. We mean too high to the trajectory of
the ball. Too high. What's the difference is that here.
Speaker 2: That's a great part of Major League is that they
cut to the fans. Because I gotta say, I've tried
to figure out who the main character is in Major League,
and I can't figure it out, I can't. I think
it's Cleveland. I think Cleveland might be the main character
in the movie because it's a story about them and
their poor pathetic team that everybody knows is pathetic, and
that's the Cinderella story that we get. And so that's
why you have these scenes where it cuts to the guys,
you know, up in the stands where there's only four
people and they're doing the wave by themselves, or the
guys who are working the grounds who are actually father
and son by the way, I don't know if you
know that actual father and son. And then Neil Flynn,
who is nobody at the time, is one of the
like the construction guys who's like these efing whatever what
he's throwing the F bomb and whatever. He says. He
went on to be the janitor and scrubs, which was
a pretty major part, and now he's playing the dad
in the middle, which is it's interesting to see those
guys who's their starting point who have gone on to
do great things like him, and also obviously Wesley Snipes
and Ornee Russo.
Speaker 3: I love the line also from Bull Durham where he
says he tells nuke. He says don't think it can
only hurt the ball club.
Speaker 2: One last thing. You're gonna have to learn your cliches.
You're gonna have to study them. We've got to play
it one day at a time. It's pretty boring. Of course,
it's boring. That's the point. Write it down. You see
that scene, and then you see the last scene when
he's in the when he's in the major leagues and
he's doing his interview, and then you watch any player
doing an interview in professional sports after that point, and
you're like, oh my gosh, he's learned his cliches because
everybody's always about the team.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: But I guess it's not like not everybody enjoyed the movie.
Speaker 3: Really, yeah, I mean, who do you know that didn't?
Speaker 2: Well, Mickey Mantle, you were telling me this story.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's right. I need to tell you this story. Okay,
thank you. You teed it up for me and I and
I didn't even see it coming.
Speaker 2: You to do it again.
Speaker 3: Will you please tell me when you're gonna throw me
the fastball, speak to me. Speak well, right, okay, So yeah,
so Mickey Mannle didn't enjoy it, so he was on
with a like a late night talk show. I don't
know if it was let him in or somebody else,
but they were asking him, Hey, Micky, did you see
this new funny baseball movie called Bull Durham? And he said, yeah,
I saw it, and they were like, what'd you think, Micky?
It was really funny, right, and he's like, yeah, you know, yeah,
and he was. His reaction was sort of yeah, I
saw it, you know. And the host could tell what
Micky didn't think this movie was funny, and so he
finally pinned him down and Mickey was like, no, I
didn't really think it was funny. I thought it was.
Speaker 2: Sad, sad, sad, Yeah, how go to be sad?
Speaker 3: So the host is like, sad, what are you talking about?
It made me sad because that guy could play, referring
to Crash Davis. He could hit it, and it just
made him sad to think about all the friends that
he had in the minor leagues that were stuck behind
guys like Mickey Mantle who never made it to the
big time. It could play. I just thought that was
a really interesting perspective on the movie.
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's time for final judgment.
Speaker 3: You ready, Let's go to final judgment.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, we've done rock and roll, we've done pop,
we've done alternative. I don't anticipate that we're gonna do
an episode on jazz, but here's kay. I like jazz.
I didn't used to. I didn't understand it, and it
wasn't for me. But at some point I've encountered some
live jazz. When I was bartending, I was like, wait,
that's pretty good, and then I developed a taste for
it and I enjoyed it. But I still love rock
and roll. Okay, Bull Durham is jazz. Burl Durham is
smooth and sweet, and it gets you little touches of
flavor that you just aren't gonna to get in your
standard hard rock song. And I think it's fantastic. I love,
love love it. Major League is rock and freaking' roll. Man.
It is wild thing, make my heart sing kick but
the whole time, simple, straightforward Cinderella's story, but filled with
the comic genius that any guy who's been on a
baseball's been on any kind of sports team can just
dive into. And so I know this is not right.
I know this is not fair. I have to call
this a tie I can't pick because I love jazz.
I love the poetry of Bull Durham. I love the
lessons and the two teachers and their their the conflict
in their relationship. It's just so beautiful as the way
that plays out. I love that story, but it kind
of peters out, you know, it just kind of slowly
like a jazz song. Just you don't get some sort
of hard rock ending where they're crescendo. It's it's a
you know, NWD goes on and then there's more story
about crash and it's not this climactic ending, but I
still love it. But with Major League, you get you
get two climactic endings. You get calling the shot and
you get given the heater. It's so so perfect a
guy movie. They're both very guy movies, but I think
Major League is a guy guy movie, and I think
that Bull Durham is a movie that both men and
women can enjoy.
Speaker 3: That's good. That's good. You kind of you're kind of
close to my my comparison as well. But here's what
I came up with on these two movies, all right,
So I love them both. These are two of the
best baseball movies ever made. Appreciate these two movies as
being great baseball movies. So for me, Major League is
bon Jovi. It makes music for the masses, it makes
baseball accessible, it makes baseball fun. It's it's what everybody loves.
Everybody can enjoy this movie.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Bull Durham is like the Police. Okay, wow, great music,
great songs. If you're a musician, you probably appreciate them
a little more than the average person does. The craftsmanship there, right,
So as a ballplayer, the ins and outs and the
intricacies that are demonstrated in Bull Durham, I lean Bull Durham.
I gotta tell you, Bull Durham is a little bit more.
It's closer to my heart for whatever reason. Let me
tell you there's a scene in Bull Durham. I saw
Ron Shelton talk about this. There's a scene where Nuke
when he gives up a bunch of runs, they pull
him out and as he's walking to the locker room.
Ron Shelton there's like a three second scene where Nuke
is walking and he said, the only reason he had
that scene in the movie is because he wanted spikes
on concrete. He wanted that sound, and for me, that
sound is meaningful to me. It probably means nothing to
you or anybody else. But those are the small hidden
gems of Bulderham that a ballplayer appreciates. So I love
the love story, I love Major League. I just love
Bulderham just a little bit more.
Speaker 2: I understand. And those things that you're talking about that
like the cleats on the concrete, there are little nuances
associated with the sport, and even just the time of
year that it's played, the fact that baseball is played
in the spring, and the weather is a particular way
and the sun sets at a particular time, and there
is a romance about baseball that you don't get within
door sports, sure that you don't necessarily get with stadium
sports like football. There's something magical that I think they
do a great job of capturing in Field of Dreams
as well, but certainly Bull Durham they capture that essence.
I can't fall you for lean in that way at all.
My wife will agree with you. Bull Durham is the best.
My ten year old will tell you that Major League
is the best baseball movie of all time. Well, and
I can't blame you for that. We want to hear
from you, guys, Yeah, please check us out on Twitter,
check us out on Facebook, the Surely You Can't Be
Serious podcast on both of those at Surely's podcast if
you happen to be searching that way. But yeah, check
us out and tell us what you think. Tell us
if you think that there are other baseball movies out
there that are comparable to this one. There were a
lot coming out at this time, So we'd love to
hear what you've got to say on this.
Speaker 3: Hit us up on Twitter, hit us up on Facebook.
Let's hear from you if you've got a great idea
for a podcast you'd like for us to do.
Speaker 2: Let's know that a good friend of mine used to say,
this is a very simple game. You throw the ball,
you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win,
sometimes you lose. Sometimes it rains. Think about that for
a while. All music images and movie clips are used
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