Why is it called Bull Durham?
I get that the team is called the Durham Bulls, but is there significance in reversing the name like that? If it was about the SF Giants I wouldn't expect the movie to be call Giant San Francisco. Ditto a movie called Philly Philadelphia, Indian Cleveland or Cub Chicago. Moneyball was not titled Athletic Oakland.
Bottom line: is there a turn of phrase, slang, pun, or other connotation created by naming it thus?
Best Answer
Wikipedia has the answer...
The film's name is based on the nickname for Durham, North Carolina, which has been called "Bull Durham" since the 1800s, when W. T. Blackwell and Company named its product "Bull" Durham tobacco, which soon became a well-known trademark. In 1898, James B. Duke purchased the company and renamed it the American Tobacco Company. By this time, the nickname Bull Durham had already stuck.
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Who was Bull Durham?
Louis Raphael "Bull" Durham (born Louis Raphael Staub; June 27, 1877 \u2013 June 28, 1960) was a pitcher in Major League Baseball. He pitched in 2 games for the Brooklyn Superbas in 1904, 2 games for the Washington Senators in 1907 and five games for the New York Giants during 1908 and 1909.Was Bull Durham a true story?
Former Baltimore Orioles minor-leaguer Steve Dalkowski, whose blazing fastball and incurable wildness formed the basis for a main character in the movie "Bull Durham," has died at the age of 80.10 Facts About Bull Durham You Don’t Know
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Answer 2
According to here:
The film's name is based on the nickname for Durham, North Carolina, which has been called "Bull Durham" since the 1800s, when W. T. Blackwell and Company named its product "Bull" Durham tobacco, which soon became a well-known trademark. In 1898, James B. Duke purchased the company and renamed it the American Tobacco Company. By this time, the nickname Bull Durham had already stuck.
The film's writer and director, Ron Shelton, played minor league baseball for five years after graduating from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. Initially playing second base for the Baltimore Orioles' farm system, he moved from the Appalachian League to California and then Texas before finally playing AAA baseball for the Rochester Red Wings in the International League. Shelton quit when he realized he would never become a major league player. "I was 25. In baseball, you feel 60 if you're not in the big leagues. I didn't want to become a Crash Davis", he said.[5]
He returned to school and earned a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture at the University of Arizona before moving to Los Angeles to join the city's art scene. However, he felt more kinship in telling stories than in creating performance art. His break into filmmaking came with scriptwriting credits on the films Under Fire and The Best of Times .[5]
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Images: Pixabay, Dennis Holgaard Jensen, Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz, Ellie Burgin