Major League (1989) vs. Bull Durham (1988): Part 2

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