Ron Shelton

It's great.

It's Ron Shelton.

But Slapshot's got Paul Newman.

And it's also got the triplets... who wear the glasses and are crazy, Michael Unkean.

Bull Durham is a thumbs up across the board.

Ron Shelton, the director, as you might know, is a former Oriole farmhand.

He has a real feel for the legitimate sights and sounds that surround a baseball situation, and it's a tour de force, of course, for Susan Sarandon

This was the best constructed baseball movie of all time.

Yeah.

You know, in our case, Ron Shelton, the great director of Bull Durham is all of a sudden in, in, in, you know, in a weird way, uh, all these lives are moving together or moving or crisscrossing throughout.

And it's kind of cool that the small role my kids play, you do feel like maybe just a little bit of that thread they've grabbed onto this knuckleball thread.

And of course, part of the reason is, is that these guys, a lot of these guys pitch so long so that they've spanned, uh, you know, an entire, uh, several, you know, 28 seasons for, uh, quite well on professional seasons.

She says, well, they have a national championship.

They're a top D toast to school.

And Brian, your favorite director, Ron Shelton went there.

So Ben writes him and says, don't know if you're still interested in knuckleball, but I haven't found a place yet.

...

even if his own way was wrong? I- that was, and that's a Shelton.

He did, um, he did Hoosiers and a bunch of other ones, and I just, they messed that up.

No, I think it should've been like he-

Yeah.

So it was funny 'cause my buddy is the write- w- wrote it, is Ron Shelton.

Mm-hmm.

So-

But, uh, the great- the greatest story of all was when they were sh- filming the final scene.

Remember when Kevin was hitting the ball and he couldn't get it over the water and, and it went in, and Romeo, his caddy, Cheech, was kept saying, "There's a ball drop," and Kevin kept saying, "Give me another ball"? We were standing behind the camera with Ron Shelton, the, uh, director, and he had asked Kevin to find the perfect distance for him to hit his three wood to almost get it over.

Well, Kevin must have hit 20, 25 balls, and some got over, some went in the water.

And then when we got done with that [laughs] uh, they, they said, "Cut.

It's, you know, the underdog story, right? This is what so many people gravitate toward and are inspired by, and that The Freshman encapsulated very powerfully and effectively.

effectively.Just to build off that a little bit, I saw a quote from Ron Shelton, who, you know, director of Bull Durham, White Men Can't Jump-

Yeah

... two of my favorite sports films.

[laughs]

... maybe I'm being too harsh on it.

Ron Shelton, maybe if we're doing a sport film auteur Mount Rushmore, he has to, he has to be on there.

And in an interview, he was talking about his love for this film, and he says this.

I'll put When Harry Met Sally in just because there's a ton of great romantic comedies, but that's, that'll check that box.

Um, I need a sports movie, and man, I love Ron Shelton movies, so I'd pick one of his.

It would either be Tin Cup, White Men Can't Jump, Bull Durham.

Um, I'll go Bull Durham.