DURHAM, N.C. -- On a muggy summer day, three hours before game time, the field echoes with the crack of bats hitting baseballs in the home of the real-life Durham Bulls, the minor league team portrayed in the movie 'Bull Durham.'
Thwack.
Thwack.
Thwack.
Grady Little, 38, manager of this single-A team, is lounging against the net and steel batting cage. 'Just like the movie, the kids here all feel they can make it to the big leagues. All have a chance. But the odds are against them.'
Thwack.
Another pitch.
Thwack.
As portrayed in 'Bull Durham,' the fictional story of over-the-hill catcher Crash Davis and whacky rookie pitcher Ebby Calvin 'Nuke' LaLoosh, life in the minor leagues can be monotonous, exhilarating, rugged, uncertain and cruel.
It's underscored with long bus rides and adoring groupies, hitting slumps and hitting streaks, small crowds and $11-a-day meal money, love of the game and fear of failure.
Just one in 25 players who put their signatures on a pro contract - which in single-A generally pay $800 to $1,200 a month -- ever sink their cleats into a big league field where salaries can top $1 million.
'Sometime you wonder whether it's worth it, but we're here because baseball is fun. There is no feeling in the world like making a great catch in the hole and hearing the crowd roar,' says David Butts, a 24-year-old Bulls infielder with a sure glove, a strong arm but so far this season, his third in pro ball, a so-so .265 batting average.
'I feel I've got a shot at making it to the big leagues. But I realize I'm getting up in age,' said Butts, his calloused hands wrapped around a bat. 'If I don't hit at least .270 this season and move up to double-A, I may be gone.'
On this summer day, standing on the other side of the batting cage, is hitting instructor Joe Pignatano, 58, a one-time catcher with several big-league teams, including the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Mets.
Thwack.
'Wait for the ball,' Pignatano exhorts these baby-faced boys of summer, many just a few years out of college, others just a year or two out of high school. 'Let the ball come to you.'
Mike Bell, 20, a slim first baseman from Newton, N.J., listens, waits and then uncoils a swing that would make Ted Williams smile.
THWACK.
The ball soars over the 340-foot right field fence of the wood and concrete stadium, landing atop an adjoining warehouse.
'Atta boy,' grunts the big-bellied Pignatano.
A few weeks ago, the Durham Bulls, a member of the Carolina League and an affiliate of the big-league Atlanta Braves, gathered in the Carolina Theater for the premiere of 'Bull Durham,' filmed last fall in this old tobacco town of 120,000 residents.
Players howled and shook their heads in disbelief when Nuke, a southpaw hurler with a 'million dollar arm and a 5-cent brain,' had sex with a groupie inside the locker room.
'There is no way that would happen in our locker room,' Bell said. 'To tell you the truth, I wished the movie showed more baseball.'
In the theater, players cheered everytime Crash Davis, a brainy brawny vet, crashed a home run over the wooden fences of their 50-year-old park.
But they grew silent in a pair of scenes where the manager summons a slumping player and an aging Crash to his office to release them.
'We all sort of eye-balled each other, knowing that's reality,' said Lee Upshaw, 21, a tobacco-chewing southpaw from Lawrenceville, Ga. 'That's every player's fear -- to be released.'
Crash, played by actor Kevin Costner, was initially sent to Durham to teach Nuke, played by Tim Robbins, the game. Crash spoke from experience. He bounced around the minors for several years and had one glorious three-week stretch in the big leagues, referred to by players as 'The Show.'
'They were the best 21 days of my life,' Crash tells his teammates. 'You hit white balls in batting practice ... the women have long legs and brains ... and the stadiums are like cathedrals.'
If Yankee Stadium is a cathedral, then Durham Athletic Park is a country church in orange and blue, one that draws the biggest crowds in single-A baseball, averaging 3,500 spirited fans a night, about 4,500 on weekends.
The players, all ex-high school or college superstars, are battling not to be passed up. 'If I don't make it, I'll live. There's life after baseball. But it'll be rough for awhile,' said Butts, of Cadiz, Ky.
'Bull Durham' is as much about Crash's and Nuke's baseball careers as it is about their relationships with Annie Savoy, an aging groupie played by actress Susan Sarandon.
In the real Durham, there are a legion of young groupies, although players insist not as many or as wild as Hollywood implies.
'There are groupies here if you look for them,' said Jeff Greene, 23, a pitcher from Tip City, Ohio.
'They're there if you want a date,' grinned second baseman Ted Holcomb, 22, of Los Angeles.
In a tip of his cap to Crash, Bell scrawled 'Crash' on his bat.
'I did it because, well, he is the star of the movie, and because, well, we wear the same number, No. 8, and because, I like Crash. He respected the game. And he taught Nuke how to respect the game,' said Bell.
Haidee Mueller, Bell's girlfriend, laughed. 'Michael did it because he hopes the other players will call him 'Crash,'' she said.
When Bell showed up in the dugout with his new 'Crash' inscription, one young voice from the bench groaned, 'Oh puke.'
If anyone on the Bulls deserves the nickname 'Crash,' it might be Ino Guerrero, 27, of the Dominican Republic. A minor leaguer since age 17, Guerrero has climbed as high as Triple-A, but has never made that one additional step to the big leagues.
In late June, Guerrero was sent down to Durham from the Double-A Greenville Braves to give the Bulls added punch and experience.
'I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to be anyplace where I can play baseball,' said Guerrero in halting English. 'I still feel, maybe, I can get to big leagues. In baseball, you never know what's going to happen.'
The Bulls ended the first half of the season in second place in the Carolina League but in first in souvenir sales, thanks, in part, to the movie.
This is all good news for owner Miles Wolff, who bought the Bulls' franchise in 1980 for $2,500. Today he figures it's worth at least $1 million.
'We turned it into a very profitable business by providing good family entertainment. Baseball is fun -- to play or to watch,' said Wolfe, 43, who comes to nearly all the Bulls' 70 home games.
Outfield fences are plastered with dozens of ads. Near the rightfield foul pole is a wooden bull whose eyes light up and whose nose exhales smoke when a Bull player hits a home run. The bull was a gift from the movie company.
'Bull Durham' was written and directed by Ron Shelton, a former minor league player in the Baltimore Orioles organization, and produced by Thom Mount, a former resident of Durham.
The real Bulls give the film by Orion Pictures a bats-up review, particularly for its portrayal of the 'mental game,' baseball antics and superstitions.
'I have some superstitions' said pitcher Upshaw. 'I never step on the white line, I always take a dip (of chewing tobacco) between innings and I always go to bathroom in the same stall.'
The episode in the movie where slumping and exhausted Bulls flood a ballfield with sprinklers to cause a 'rainout' mirrored a long-time prank that has been pulled in several minor league towns, from Knoxville, Tenn., to Wausaw, Wis.
Greene was one of three real Bull players who had bit parts in the movie. He portrayed a cocky pitcher who strikes out a brash-talking Crash after flashing a menacing grin knocking him down with a brush-back pitch.
'That's not the real me,' Greene said. 'In a game, I don't react to anything the batter says.'
Greene is spending this season recovering from arm surgery and basking in some glory from the movie. 'Doing the movie was fun. But I'd rather be in the big leagues than in Hollywood.'
Little, the Bulls' soft-spoken skipper, served as a technical adviser in the film and says just like the manager in the movie said, 'The toughest thing about being a manager is releasing a player.' Then he smiled and said, 'The best thing is telling a boy he's going to the big leagues.'
In the past eight years, about 20 Bulls have made it to 'The Show,' some just for a few weeks as utility players, but others as front-line performers, like Brett Butler of the San Francisco Giants and Ron Gant of the Atlanta Braves.
Bulls' pitcher Kent Mercker, 20, of Dublin, Ohio, is Durham's top prospect. He signed a six-figure bonus as a No. 1 draft choice in 1986 and now draws a relatively hefty salary.
Consequently, while other Bulls work the off season in a variety of odd jobs, Mercker spends the winter 'relaxing. I worked out, though, you know, to stay in shape.'
Although teammates initially were cool to him, Mercker won them over with his friendly nature, dugout cheers and tough work ethic.
'I don't feel I've got it made,' he said a day before taking his fourth loss against nine wins. 'I know I've got to work hard to make it.'
Said Bell: 'Kent Mercker has a Nuke arm and a Crash Davis head. He's rooting for us to make it and we're rooting for him to make it.'
The movie's 'Crash Davis' is a fictitious character but there is real Crash as well: Lawrence 'Crash' Davis, 68, who played second base with the Bulls in the 1940s after a short stint in the big leagues.
Shelton found the name while flipping through old Carolina > eague records books. 'It's a great name. I didn't even realize that he (the real Crash) was alive' and residing in nearby Greensboro, N.C.
'Last fall, while we were filming, Mr. Davis, he's a real gentleman, showed up. I went over to him and said, 'Mr. Davis, we might have a problem if you don't want us to use your name.''
'He said, 'I have just one question. In the end, do I get the girl?''
'I said, 'You sure do.''
'He said, 'Well then, fine.''
