Bull Durham sucks.

[Deepster]

Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh in his debut, struck out 18 (a league record) and walked 18 (also a league record). That's 72 pitches for walks and 54 for strikeouts, assuming no foul ball 2nd strikes, for 126 pitches. Even if he only went 6 innings and struck out every out that he got, what's the friggin pitch count for a bonus baby in his first start.....when he's banging the blond floozie in the shower three minutes before he took the mound? This movie sucks.

 

[G0UCONN]

Sucks is strong but I do think it is overrated.

When Susan Sarandon acts as pitching coach while the other chick catches Nuke in the backyard????----painful...

That said, most of the baseball scenes are funny/good.

 

[Husky25]

ESPN dot com Page 2 has gone caput but here's an updated version of Bull Durham.

It even mentions your 18 walks and Ks issue (plus hitting the bull twice and, I believe, PA announcer)

 

[Deepster]

I mean, my math up there assumes every walk was 4-0 and every strikeout was 0-3. Of those 18 at bats, assume there was just 1 strike or 1 ball in each. That would be 36 extra pitches, bumping his debut from 126 to 154.

How did someone not check the basic math on that?!?!

 

[Waquoit]

That was pre-Moneyball.

 

[Husky25]

I mean, my math up there assumes every walk was 4-0 and every strikeout was 0-3. Of those 18 at bats, assume there was just 1 strike or 1 ball in each. That would be 36 extra pitches, bumping his debut from 126 to 154.

How did someone not check the basic math on that?!?!

Ron Shelton was a minor league ball player in the late 60's-early 70's and the movie came out in 1988. Pitch counts rarely mattered back then especially at the time when Shelton was playing ball. I read the Yankee Years by Joe Torre a couple years ago (great read, even for Red Sox fans. It covers his mindset in 2004), where he mentions Key, Cone, Wells, Clemens, etc. would all routinely throw 125-150 pitches in the 90's and early 2000s. It wasn't until the early-mid 90's that pitch counts really began to matter.

Bull Durham is certainly a dated movie, but if you want to really bash it based on today's standards, how about a pitcher as unpolished as Nuke getting a call from High A ball to the Major Leagues?
How about the pitching coach not knowing where the organization's $Million prospect is before a start?
Or interrupting what Robert Wuhl had to interrupt while the rest of his team is taking grounders?
How about Nukes' pitching Mechanics?
How about Nuke's entourage not betting the snot out of Crash when he gets popped in the face?

 

[Deepster]

We're talking a MINIMUM of 154 pitches in the debut of the franchise's bonus baby. Throw in a 4-5 hits where each count had 2-3 pitches in each. That's 10-12 more. He hit at least one batter that they showed. How about the walks and strikeouts where there were a few foul balls on Strike 2? We're at like 200 pitches....oh, and EIGHTEEN WALKS.

 

[Husky25]

We're talking a MINIMUM of 154 pitches in the debut of the franchise's bonus baby. Throw in a 4-5 hits where each count had 2-3 pitches in each. That's 10-12 more. He hit at least one batter that they showed. How about the walks and strikeouts where there were a few foul balls on Strike 2? We're at like 200 pitches....oh, and EIGHTEEN WALKS.

So if a movie is not realistic, it automatically sucks? If Hollywood went by that definition, Hollywood wouldn't exist. Independence Day sucks. The Terminator sucks, Transformers 2 (Well it sucks on it's own merit, but still...it sucks), etc. Pay no attention to the special effects (You know the point of the movie), aliens would never blow up the Empire State Building, The White House, the Eiffel Tower and so many other Wonders of the World Simultaneously. Likewise the US would never be able to coordinate efforts with EVERY MILITARY ON EARTH via Morse code for a cooperative counter attack. Time travel isn't even scientifically possible let alone by cyborg. It's called Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

Shelton may have intended Bull Durham to be a sports movie, but in order to make any money (i.e. get made in the first place), he had to draw in the female viewer. That means exaggerating a few details for the benefit of those who do not follow the game.

You must hate Star Wars.

 

[Dogdeacon]

Actually the one benefit of Tim Robbins un-athletic pitching motion was that it drastically reduced wear and tear on the rotator cuff. Robbins had a bum shoulder so this accommodation was made to allow him to throw in excess of 200 pitched per day that was necessary for them to get all the footage they needed.

 

[Palatine]

Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh in his debut, struck out 18 (a league record) and walked 18 (also a league record). That's 72 pitches for walks and 54 for strikeouts, assuming no foul ball 2nd strikes, for 126 pitches. Even if he only went 6 innings and struck out every out that he got, what's the friggin pitch count for a bonus baby in his first start.....when he's banging the blond floozie in the shower three minutes before he took the mound? This movie sucks.

It's a love story.