My first love when it came to my nascent baseball career was pitching.  I dare say that some of my biggest developmental moments came while on the mound.  While playing in my hometown outside of Chicago, I was unhittable.  When my family moved to Florida, a place where little league could be found year-round, I barely got an opportunity to demonstrate my prowess.  The chance finally came the following fall, but I had a terrible umpire.  Despite walking many batters, I did not want to come out of the game.  Instead of handing the ball to my coach, I slammed it into the ground, stalked to the bench, and cried.  There went any potential trust.  These events had an effect on me, one that was noticed by my next coach a year later.  His advice: stop thinking.  It is a lesson that worked for me in spurts, but I could never completely shake those distracting ruminations.  This has carried over to my prayer life.  If I could just maintain my concentration, I would probably be knocking on Heaven’s door presently.  These thoughts are what I took away from Bull Durham (1988), one of the few films about my favorite sport that I had not seen.  There is little else that is salvageable about it, but that is why we have The Legionnaire.

It is Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) who takes it upon herself in Bull Durham to salvage the eponymous minor league baseball team’s best player’s careers.  She does this out of some quasi-philosophical/religious devotion to baseball.  In practice, what it means is that she finds the player she believes to have the most promise at the beginning of the season and sleep with that person for the duration or until that person moves on, presumably promoted because of her, er . . . assistance. . . ?  Her target this year is Ebby Calvin “Nuke” Laloosh (Tim Robbins).  The first time we see him is in a compromising position in the clubhouse before he is due to pitch.  The wildness of that scene is only matched by his performance on the mound, barely able throw a single delivery over the plate.  Nonetheless, Annie sends pitching tips down to the dugout, her choice seemingly made.  After the game, manager Joe “Skip” Riggins (Trey Wilson) welcomes into his office veteran minor league catcher Lawrence “Crash” Davis (Kevin Kostner).  Crash is not keen on the plan presented to him: to be Nuke’s mentor, the aim being to get the rookie on track to make it to the major leagues.  It is evident that Crash sees few alternatives for soon after initially refusing, he comes back and asks who they are playing tomorrow.  His next destination is the bar, where he sends a couple of drinks towards Annie.  Upon acknowledging the gesture, he comes to sit with her, only to find that Nuke is already present.  There is a brief quarrel over Annie, though Crash is willing to back down before an actual fight commences.  The aptly named Nuke is less inclined to drop the matter and they go outside.  Though it ends with Crash decking Nuke with one punch, the veteran gives the young pitcher the opportunity to throw a baseball at him.  Nuke misses by several feet, and after the dust settles, Crash introduces himself as the new catcher.  What has not been settled is the rivalry for Annie’s affections.  Crash tries to be aloof, but he cannot understand why an educated, beautiful woman like Annie would be interested in the dimwitted Nuke.  And while there is clearly a mutual attraction, Crash being able to match her book smarts, for example, her focus remains on Crash.  Thus, for the moment, Crash focuses on his own play, being only twenty-odd homeruns from setting a minor league record for that statistic.  Still, he does continue to try to guide Nuke, though the pitcher stubbornly remains set in his arrogant ways.  Upon returning from a particularly disastrous road trip, Annie picks up Nuke from the bus and they go back to her place.  He believes they are about to have sex as they usually do, but instead she gives him some pitching advice and suggests that he channel that energy into his next start, which is that night.  She also finally gets him to wear one of her garters under his uniform, which she says will “balance” him, somehow.  Her most important advice though is for him not to shake off the signs Crash gives him behind the plate.  By finally following these instructions, Nuke turns his season around, becoming a dominant pitcher.  This is good for him, but bad for Annie.  Nuke believes it is tied to them not having sex, so here is to the benefits of abstinence, anyway.  She resorts to trying to seduce him, but it only serves to mess with his head somewhat.  As such, in his next game, he does poorly, made all the more painful by his father being in the stands.  Nonetheless, he goes over to Annie’s after the game, prepared to finally do the thing she had been wanting because they lost.  Before anything could happen, she gets a call looking for him to inform him he has been promoted to the Major Leagues.  Nuke goes to tell Crash, who is initially dismissive of the development.  He gets worse news soon thereafter when he is informed that he had been cut by the team.  This seems to open the way for him to be with Annie, though on the heels of a few days of lovemaking, he leaves to pursue playing for another team.  He is not gone for long, though, because as soon as he gets his record, he comes back to Annie.

Even though he does not say it, the reason Crash departs in the last fifteen minutes of Bull Durham is so that he can set the minor league home run record.  I know the feeling.  Had he not done so, he would have lived the rest of his life wondering if it could have ever been.  It could have become a regret, and regrets are not of God.  Regrets are stray thoughts the enemy can torture us with, which makes us feel like we are not good enough for anyone, let alone God.  The opposite is unequivocally true.  God loves you and me more than we can comprehend.  At the same time, it brings up the message in the movie about not thinking.  There is a metaphor for the spiritual life in the in-game relationship between the catcher and pitcher.  The catcher relays signs from the real boss, the manager in the dugout, for the kind of pitches he wants in a given situation.  It is up to the pitcher to accept them and execute them.  The hurler does have free will, and can choose some other type of throw.  More often, that leads to disaster, especially when the catcher gets fed up with the pitcher and tells the hitter what is coming.  In that last bit, the metaphor falls apart, for I was thinking of the catcher as a type of Jesus.  Then again, putting Crash and Jesus in the same sentence is absurd.  Nonetheless, like throwing a baseball across home plate, the operation functions much better when there is trust.  Trusting in God looks different for everyone, but its baseline for everyone is acceptance.  Mary said yes to the Lord, gave her fiat, and with it salvation entered into the world.  She trusted what she did not understand.  Things work better for Nuke when he gives his form of assent to what is being asked for him.  I believe the same thing can be said about your life if you give your yes to God.

Even so, it is hard for me to say yes to you watching Bull Durham.  There is no nudity in it, but that is about the only thing missing.  There are also a couple of moments I do not appreciate, like a Rosary being used in a voodoo ritual, and the one openly Christian character being made into a joke.  I like that it is pointed out that there are 108 Rosary beads, which matches the number of stitches on a baseball.  Otherwise, proceed at your own risk.