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| Former minor leaguer Ron Shelton hit a grand slam with his directorial debut, one of the most revered sports movies of all time. Durham Bulls devotee Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon)—who every year takes a new player under her wing (and into her bed)—has singled out the loose-cannon pitching prospect Nuke LaLoosh (Tim Robbins), a big-league talent with a rock-bottom maturity level. But she’s unable to shake Crash Davis (Kevin Costner), the veteran catcher brought in to give Nuke some on-the-field seasoning. A breakthrough film for all three of its stars and an Oscar nominee for Shelton’s highly quotable screenplay, Bull Durham is a freewheeling hymn to wisdom, experience, and America’s pastime, tipping its cap to all those who grind it out for love of the game. |
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| Over his nearly seventy-five years as a New Yorker writer, Roger Angell has worn many different hats: fiction editor, reporter, poetry contributor, book reviewer. But he is most beloved for his writing on baseball, which began appearing in the magazine in the early 1960s and became a long-running regular column. With his sharp eye for the nuance and drama of the game, deep knowledge of its history, and knack for placing it within the wider context of American life and culture, he has brought new artfulness to the genre of sportswriting, suffusing it with the passion of a true fan and chronicling some of baseball’s most extraordinary moments. |
