April is a sports fan’s dream with the NCAA basketball championship, the NBA and NHL playoff push, golf’s Masters tournament, the NFL draft and, perhaps most celebrated of all the annual April sporting events, the opening of the Major League Baseball season. This week’s Sports Movie of the Week, ‘Bull Durham,’ is arguably the best baseball movie ever made and a perfect choice to get fans in the mood for baseball.

In the 1988 film, Kevin Costner stars as Crash Davis, a veteran minor league catcher for the Durham Bulls. Davis is entrusted with the development of pitching phenom Ebby Calvin ‘Nuke’ LaLoosh (Tim Robbins). As the two players at opposite ends of their careers feel out their relationship, fan Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) takes a liking to both of them, creating a romantic triangle that provides awkwardness and laughs on and off the field. Filled with behind-the-scenes baseball gems and outstanding performances, ‘Bull Durham’ is a love story, but it is baseball that is the true love of all the characters.

Five Reasons to Watch ‘Bull Durham’

1. The movie is ranked fifth on the American Film Institute’s list of the 10 greatest films in the “Sports” genre.

2. Nearly every interaction between the players in the movie produced baseball jargon that is more recognized now than it was prior to the film’s release.

3. Davis’ “I believe in…” speech in the scene in which Davis and LaLoosh both find themselves at Savoy’s house is one of the film’s best moments.

4. Actors Sarandon and Robbins first met on this film. Though they never married , they did have two kids before splitting in 2009.

5. The on-field dialogue between Davis and LaLoosh is laugh-out-loud funny, while functionally giving depth to their characters.

Click the play button to watch the trailer of the film below:

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