Durham Bulls still bask in Hollywood glory

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Filimed in North Carolina, "Bull Durham" gave minor-league baseball a major push

DURHAM - The bull still snarls from atop the outfield wall, snorting smoke after home runs and taunting hitters with four simple words written on it: Hit bull, win steak.

The replica of the prop Hollywood built for "Bull Durham'' is larger and glitzier than the original and in that way, it's like nearly everything else about today's Durham Bulls.

Exactly 20 years have passed since the film hit theaters on June 15, 1988, and the modern-day Bulls bear little resemblance to the fictionalized crew portrayed on film by Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins. No longer a small-town team with a run-down ballpark mired in the sleepy [North] Carolina League, these Bulls play in a major-league-quality stadium and, as Tampa Bay's Triple-A affiliate, are one step from "The Show.'' Yet they're well aware why they're one of the minor leagues' biggest names.

"Without that movie, I don't believe minor league baseball is as strong as it is today,'' Bulls general manager Mike Birling said. "That was kind of the piece that really got minor league baseball moving again.''

Especially the Bulls, who never would have catapulted to fame had ex-minor league second baseman Ron Shelton not placed Durham in his film, which spends a year with the then-Single-A club and stars Costner as an aging catcher, Robbins as a hotshot pitching prospect and Susan Sarandon as the fan wooed by both.

The film's sharp dialogue, timeless scenes and believable on-field action wound up sending the Bulls into the national consciousness.

"Ron wrote a beautiful screenplay and it was really up to us to try to serve it, protect it, add to it in whatever way we could that made sense to Ron, and then Ron protected it as a director,'' Costner said. "That's what happens if you get some classic writing. ... Films are supposed to have some staying power. All too often they don't, but they're supposed to.''

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