If baseball is a religion, then "Bull Durham" has become its Bible. Baseball was a religion for Annie Savoy (played by Susan Sarandon) in the 1988 movie. Her narration, along with the inherently quotable dialogue, baseball truisms — and performances from other Hollywood stars such as Tim Robbins and Kevin Costner — have made it one of the best sports movies ever. It focused on a real Class-A club in Durham, NC — the Durham Bulls. Back then, minor league teams were far from the popular, family-friendly entities they are today. When the movie premiered on June 15, 1988, all of a sudden the concept of minor league baseball became much more popular, and attendance shot up nationwide. The Bulls had come and gone in Durham, but they were brought back for good in 1980 by then-owner Miles Wolff, and led the Carolina League in attendance. Once the movie came out, the Durham Athletic Park (DAP), where the movie was filmed, was just too small to hold the increasingly overflowing crowds. The new stadium (Durham Bulls Athletic Park, or the DBAP) opened in 1995 and it’s modern, through and through. By 1998, the stadium was good enough (and attendance, too) that the Bulls finally became a Triple-A affiliate. Craft and local beers are served on the DBAP concourse, there are state-of-the-art suites, play areas for kids, plenty of sponsorship signage and, oh yes, a 10,000-seat capacity, double that of the DAP. The mascot Wool E. Bull’s locker room (he has his own locker room) is probably bigger than the bathroom (there was only one women’s bathroom) at the old DAP. The movie put the city of Durham on the map, too. The city — and particularly the downtown area — has blossomed in recent years and continues to do so, as old tobacco factories are converted into office buildings and hip new restaurants and bars. It’s almost unrecognizable from what it was when "Bull Durham" premiered 25 years ago. Durham is in the middle of the Triangle and Tobacco Road, which is college basketball country. The Triangle worships at the altar of college hoops, but they don’t mind visiting Annie’s church every now and then, either. Even now. The new-look Bulls still honor the movie as often as they can. This year, they’ve brought out their own versions of the Washington Nationals’ racing Presidents with three racing "Bull Durham" characters: Annie, Nuke LaLoosh and Crash Davis. The Bulls celebrated the 25th anniversary on Sunday by peppering in trivia questions and clips from the movie between innings, and the racers were of course featured prominently. In the middle of the fourth, the three started their race. Crash took an early lead, but the young gun Nuke caught up to him quickly. It looked like he was going to win easily — then, all of a sudden, the original bull mascot caught up to Nuke and shoved him to the ground. Crash won easily. “After 25 years, it looks like the bull has finally gotten his revenge!” the on-field announcer shouted, referencing, of course, LaLoosh’s notorious lack of control. (By that logic, the public address announcer and at least one sportswriter should get a crack at him, too.) Of course, it makes sense. Crash won in the end of the movie, too — sort of. He got the girl. During any minor league game, any number of things can happen that might call to mind the movie. When the Bulls are on the road, a meeting on the mound means teams will play the infamous meeting from the movie when it looks like they’re talking shop, but instead they’re talking about candlesticks as a wedding gift. On Sunday, Indianapolis manager Dean Treanor was ejected before the game started, which made one wonder if he had a similar exchange to the one Crash Davis had with an ump in the movie. (OK, not really. But it somehow seemed appropriate.) Also on Sunday, Tampa Bay prospect Wil Myers has been waiting for the call for quite some time, and it finally came. After Myers hit an RBI double in the first, manager Charlie Montoyo got a call that his star had to come out in the third. He knew it probably meant Myers had gotten the call he’d been waiting for since last year. And he was right. Ultimately, that’s what everyone on the Triple-A level is trying to do. Some of them might have seen the movie, and some of them might not have. Some of them weren’t even born when it came out. Montoyo has been with the Bulls since 2007. “It means a lot to me because I’ve been here for a long time, so it’s kind of cool. But when it comes to the players, they’re just playing the game and hoping to get called up,” Montoyo said. “The goal is to play in the big leagues and do well here, so.”
