{"id":8016,"date":"2022-07-28T19:00:42","date_gmt":"2022-07-28T19:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/?p=8016"},"modified":"2023-03-27T15:59:24","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T15:59:24","slug":"on-bull-durham-night-a-cult-classic-comes-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/2022\/07\/28\/on-bull-durham-night-a-cult-classic-comes-to-life\/","title":{"rendered":"On Bull Durham Night, a cult classic comes to life"},"content":{"rendered":"
Taylor Seabrease was 15 the first time she watched the 1988 baseball film <\/span>Bull Durham<\/span><\/i>. That was back in 2009. Since then she has seen the cult classic at least 15 times.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI like baseball, I like Kevin Costner and I just think that all the comedy and inside jokes in the movie are really, really great,\u201d she said, eyes wide and a smile flashing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Seabrease, who lives in Maryland, traveled from her home state with her boyfriend for last Friday\u2019s annual Bull Durham Night, when the Durham Bulls honor her favorite movie.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n She looked forward to \u201cseeing the Shower Shoes take home a win.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Each year, players, coaches and the manager wear a new jersey referencing a scene from the film. This year, they were the Durham Shower Shoes: in an early scene, veteran catcher Crash Davis (played by Costner) finds the shower shoes of pitcher Ebby Calvin \u2018Nuke\u2019 LaLoosh (played by Tim Robbins) covered in fungus.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll never make it to the Bigs [the Major Leagues] with fungus on your shower shoes,\u201d Davis says.<\/span><\/p>\n Seabrease\u2019s boyfriend wore a Shower Shoes cap he bought in the team\u2019s retail store. The shower shoes scene is always fun to watch, Seabrease said. But her favorite scene? It\u2019s when the team mudslides through a baseball diamond at night after drenching the field with sprinklers. It always makes her smile and laugh, especially on days when she needs a feel-good moment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Bull Durham Night is typically held at Durham Bulls Athletic Park in early to mid-June, around the anniversary of the movie\u2019s world premiere. But this year it was held Friday, July 22, as the \u201cShower Shoes\u201d played the Norfolk Tides.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n On social media, the Bulls became the Durham Shower Shoes. Ushers wore unique Shower Shoe-green polos. Fans scattered throughout the ballpark were clad in previous years\u2019 Bull Durham Night merchandise and in Shower Shoes gear. Ahead of the game, the social media team tweeted a reference to <\/span>Bull Durham<\/span><\/i> character Annie Savoy (played by Susan Sarandon), the team\u2019s biggest fan and the focal point of a love triangle that involves Crash and Nuke.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe believe in the church of baseball,\u201d the tweet said, an homage to Savoy\u2019s famous opening monologue.<\/span><\/p>\n The scene at the stadium traveled across the silver screen into real life.<\/span><\/p>\n Husband and wife Robert and Teresa Shell sat next to each other at the top right corner of the stadium, in front of the Bud Light bar. Robert, who appeared to be in his late fifties, wore a white, red and blue jersey with Davis\u2019 name stitched on the back. Teresa, who looks to be about the same age, wore a matching LaLoosh one. Besides the one he wore, Robert owns nine other Bulls jerseys.<\/span><\/p>\n The two live in Fuquay-Varina, N.C., but are die-hard Bulls fans. Robert owns a collection of baseball movies, but his favorites are <\/span>Major League <\/span><\/i>(directed by David S. Ward), <\/span>For the Love of the Game <\/span><\/i>(directed by Sam Raimi) and, of course, <\/span>Bull Durham <\/span><\/i>(directed by Ron Shelton). Shelton, who this summer released <\/span>The Church of Baseball<\/span><\/i>\u2014a book about the making of the film\u2014was not in attendance Friday night.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Robert has seen <\/span>Bull Durham<\/span><\/i> more than 30 times, he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Since they moved to their town (45 minutes south of Durham) nine years ago, the couple has been to five Bull Durham Nights.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Beyond those events, they\u2019ve had their fair share of Bull Durham<\/em> moments. Once, after visiting a pickle festival in the Warehouse District, they walked outside and noticed they were next to the Durham Athletic Park outfield (the historic stadium where the team used to play, and where <\/span>Bull Durham<\/span><\/i> takes place). Robert got giddy and began taking pictures of the field. When he walked into the stadium, a groundskeeper stopped him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Oh, I\u2019m sorry. I just figured out where I was. I had to take some pictures of it,\u2019\u201d Robert recalled. The groundskeeper nodded for him to go on inside. \u201cThen I go, \u2018Man, is this heaven?\u2019 He goes, \u2018Wrong Costner movie.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Inside the stadium, scores of people carried bags with green T-shirts and hats from the team store. Mascot Wool E. Bull made the rounds taking pictures with fans, some wearing \u201cLollygagger\u201d T-shirts \u2014 another movie reference. Some recited their favorite lines from the film.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c\u2018It\u2019s a very simple game. You throw the ball. You catch the ball. You hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains,\u2019\u201d said fan Steve Force as he waited in line to order food with his girlfriend and their friends. (He was quoting\u00a0 Nuke in the movie\u2019s closing scene.)\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Nearby, standing at an outdoor beer kiosk as Crash, Nuke and Annie mascots raced around the diamond, was Jeremy Trantham. He moved to Durham in 2010, when he was in his early twenties, and has been a Bulls fan ever since. He even used to attend the Bulls\u2019 special game at Durham Athletic Park, played annually in honor of their old home. Since he moved to the city, he\u2019s seen the team and town grow a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe old stadium has a very small intimate feel \u2014 kind of like the minor league baseball I grew up in my hometown,\u201d said Trantham, who works in digital marketing. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s an Annie Savoy in this stadium right now or [someone] that could access the players in the way that they did in the movie because it\u2019s a different level of baseball.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In 1995, the team moved from the old ballpark to its new stadium next to the American Tobacco campus.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Three years later, the team went from Single-A, one of Minor League Baseball\u2019s lower levels, to Triple-A, the stage just below the majors. By the early 2000s, Durham had grown its reputation beyond being the hometown of the American Tobacco Company and Duke University, becoming a tech and innovation hot spot. Companies such as Bronto Software (now owned by Oracle Corporation) and Burt\u2019s Bees opened headquarters on the American Tobacco Campus.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The rest of the city grew with it. Real estate developers built high rises and renovated old historic buildings downtown. Government projects revitalized dated neighborhoods with shopping and leisure districts.<\/span><\/p>\n