“Baseball may be a religion full of magic, cosmic truth, and the fundamental ontological riddles of our time, but it’s also a job.”

There is a tendency to refer to Bull Durham as one of the greatest sports movies of all time—an assertion to which I’ll object only on a technicality. Namely, to be frank, its stagy depiction of baseball is rather unconvincing. Thankfully, that’s the worst thing about it. Otherwise, former minor league infielder Ron Shelton, who wrote and directed, proves himself an adept filmmaker, especially in terms of character and dialogue. Lacing his script with inside baseball lingo, cultural insights, an affectionate touch of satire, a bit of eroticism, and charmingly oddball references (how many other films namedrop both Susan Sontag and Francis of Assissi?), Shelton puts his finger on the pulse of his former way of life and delivers a delightful love letter to those still living the grind who will likely never fulfill their dreams of making it to The Show. “Write what you know” is advice that few aspiring writers want to hear, but it works wonders for Shelton in his debut.

The film is narrated by Annie Savoy, a spiritually eccentric groupie played by Susan Sarandon who typically chooses one player from the small-town single-A Durham Bulls to cohabitate with each season, enticing them with her curvaceous figure and feminine wiles then instilling their minds with her adhoc new age “Church of Baseball” credo—a philosophy which sees its adherents wearing women’s underwear and “breathing through their eyelids like the lava lizards of the Galapagos Islands.” She’s also a heck of a batting coach who claims her actions are noble because whomever she sleeps with always has the best season of their career.

We need a live rooster to take the curse off José’s glove and nobody seems to know what to get Millie or Jimmy for their wedding present.

This particular season her affections are divided between hotshot rookie Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh (Tim Robbins)—possessed with a “million-dollar arm and a five-cent head”—and Lawrence “Crash” Davis (Kevin Costner), a veteran catcher brought onto the team to mentor the young phenom. Crash initially scoffs at the camp follower’s advances, delivering a legendary monologue about his beliefs (“I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman’s back, the hanging curveball, high fiber, good scotch…”) when she shows undue interest in the rookie. He’s also divided on how much he wants to actually mentor the cocky youngster. After all, once Nuke gets called up to the Majors, Crash’s career is likely over. He eventually comes around, sort of. At least until that fateful call-up—then the Bulls have no need for Crash, and Nuke has no need for Annie.

Each of the three principals are terrific in their roles (Robbins and Sarandon actually became a real-life item for a couple decades following the film), as are the stellar pinch hitters (Trey Wilson, Robert Wuhl, Jenny Robertson, Max Patkin, among others) that provide background atmosphere Altman-style. But it is Shelton’s witty, literate, idiosyncratic script, brimming with tacky small-town Americana touches that recall Jonathan Demme (Something Wild, Married to the Mob) and priceless anecdotes seemingly hard-earned from his own years toiling in the minors, that shines the brightest. His tangible love for the world he’s depicting obscures the film’s mild narrative and dramatic hiccups, while his memorable dialogue and offbeat characters allow the leisurely paced romantic comedy to transcend its backstop backdrop.