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The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit
Top of the pile
82
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
77/100Critics
86/100Scholars
Author:
Ron Shelton
Publisher:
Knopf
Date:
July 5, 2022
Bull Durham, the breakthrough 1988 film about a minor league baseball team, is widely revered as the best sports movie of all time. But back in 1987, Ron Shelton was a first-time director and no one was willing to finance a movie about baseballâespecially a story set in the minors. The jury was still out on Kevin Costner's leading-man potential, while Susan Sarandon was already a has-been. There were doubts. But something miraculous happened, and The Church of Baseball attempts to capture why.
What The Reviewers Say
Shelton’s new memoir, The Church of Baseball, does for filmmaking what Bull Durham did for the national pastime: it demystifies the craft, pillories the business, and celebrates the calling with wit and passion.
Eminently readable.
Breezy.
Shelton goes into great detail about the post-production work, as the movie team and studio executives argue endlessly about which scenes to include and which to cut. He also takes us through the nerve-racking process of test screenings, in which the movie is previewed for carefully chosen audiences.
