If you're new to Earth and are wondering which Kevin Costner baseball film to start with, drive past "Field of Dreams" and take the exit marked, "Bull Durham."

While both great movies, "Field of Dreams" requires a dream-like nostalgia for the era and aura of childhood in order to best feel that film inside your bones. "Bull Durham" edges it out by summoning outstanding character development across the board, and by supporting Coster's terrific portrayal with elite supporting acting from juggernauts Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins.

This is a classic film, and possibly the best there's been at conjuring the very nuanced American soul of baseball, as well as the unique characters and life-affirming truths our pastime evokes. - (Was this review of use to you? If so, let me know by clicking "Helpful." Cheers!)

I sometimes get this movie confused with "Major League"; they came out within a year of each other and quite obviously, they're both baseball films. Now that I've caught up again with this picture, I'll probably be able to keep them apart well enough. "Major League" had that great 'Wild Thing' sequence going for it, and it would have helped if this one could have snared a catchy tune of it's own. The closest it came was a brief snippet of Credence Clearwater's 'Center Field' song, but it didn't hang around long enough to make a lasting impression.

Of the three principals, Kevin Costner comes across as having the best character here, but I would have held him in higher regard if he didn't let his libido get in the way when it came to Baseball Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon). With all the sex and profanity in the film, there were times that it felt more like a locker room joke than a story about the national pastime. After Crash Davis (Costner) had his tumble in the hay with Annie toward the end of the story, I had to wonder whether General Mills did the right thing signing off on that box of Wheaties on her kitchen table. I don't think the Breakfast of Champions had that kind of competition in mind.

When the film does broach the 'love of the game', the dialog raises the standard of the picture up a notch, as when Crash describes his twenty one days 'in The Show'. I've heard the term used before, and it does seem to appropriately describe a reverence for making it to the Big Leagues. But then you have a scene in which Crash uses that one word that's a no-no with umpires, and it drags the story back down to the gutter again, at least for this viewer.

As a corollary to my summary line above, uttered by team manager Skip (Trey Wilson) to his hapless team in the early part of the story, Ebby 'Nuke' LaLoosh offers up his own version later on when he eventually makes it to The Show himself - "Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes it rains". For me, this might have been one of those 'sometime it rains' pictures. Considering that Kevin Costner starred in the great Academy Award nominated "Field of Dreams" the very year following "Bull Durham", this one more closely resembles a strike-out.

Bull Durham only received Oscar recognition in one category that of Original Screenplay. But that screenplay is the basis of the film that broke the mold for baseball films.

When you think of baseball films you think of heroic type films like the biographical stories of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Grover Cleveland Alexander and Monty Stratton. Or some funny, but still reverential films like Kill The Umpire or It Happens Every Spring. None of these films will ever have a character like Susan Sarandon, a well known baseball Annie which is what the players have dubbed their groupies. You could never have a character like her with the infamous Code in place.

Sarandon is frank, she loves sex, she loves baseball and she sees herself doing her bit for the national past time. Her concentration this year is on Tim Robins who is a promising Sandy Koufax like pitcher before Sandy got control of his pitching and gave us five of the best seasons ever seen before announcing his premature retirement.

Also giving Robins his concentration is veteran catcher Kevin Costner hired specifically for that purpose by the Raleigh-Durham Bulls. Between Sarandon and Costner they turn Robins into someone fulfilling his promise. But baseball is a most unsentimental game as Costner knows and Sarandon's avocation is also one with some heartbreak.

Best scene in the film is Costner describing what it's like in the Major Leagues, 'the big show'. As he says "the 20 best days in my life". Like actors, athletes on team sports want to play in whatever major leagues there are. If not they're like Costner, hanging on because of the love of the game.

Costner has the philosophy of Stan Musial who was quoted as saying he knew it was time to quit because the pain outweighed the fun of getting paid to play a sport. I suspect that Musial would have felt the same had he been a journeyman player like Costner rather than the Hall Of Famer he is.

No way that Christian athlete William O'Leary would have been a character in a film made under the Code auspices. Younger groupie Jenny Robertson makes a point of showing him what he's missing.

Ron Shelton who was a minor league ballplayer drew from some rich memories of those times to give us Bull Durham. It's both a serious and also irreverently funny look at those who participate in our national past time and the women who service them.