SAN DIEGO — Those who love baseball — love its deliberate pace, its abject offensive failure, its quirks and warts — understand the brilliance of baseball's blue-streaked cinematic gem "Bull Durham."
Those who stayed loyal to the Padres for decades understand the movie's bigger message.
Writer and director Ron Shelton, who will be honored with the Leonard Maltin Tribute Award this weekend during the Coronado Island Film Festival, side-stepped typical baseball trappings to find the vein of something far more real.
"(Aging catcher) Crash (Davis) is interesting because there's something universal about loving something and it doesn't love you back," said Shelton, whose film projects include "Tin Cup," "White Men Can't Jump" and "Blaze." "It could be a job or a person. You love them or it more than what you get back.
"That makes it bigger than baseball."
Shelton played five and a half seasons of minor league baseball as an infielder. He wanted to make a baseball movie that felt genuine, amid the inning-by-inning laughs.
Minor league baseball is ramen noodles, couch surfing and misaligned stars. It's curb-stomped dreams, messy relationships and a dirt-caked endurance test. It's also glorious.
"The Rancho Bakersfield (Motel) was one of my favorites," said Shelton, as memories flooded back. "It had this giant, Vegas-sized sign because that's where truckers stayed. We liked it because it had a 24-hour coffee shop.
"Truck drivers. Drug deals. Rooms rented by the hour, that sort of thing. We were not in the Four Seasons in New York City about to play the Yankees, I'll put it that way."
Why stop there? In fact, how could you stop there?
"The meal money is pathetic," Shelton said with a laugh. "I remember one time in Little Rock we just went to the grocery store and bought lunch meat and bread. We put it all in a bucket of ice so we had sandwiches at the game."
Still, the game intoxicates.
"Even with all of that, it's the greatest time you can have in your 20s," he said.
Shelton came up in the Orioles organization, becoming friends with AL MVP Don Baylor and Bobby Grich, an All-Star, Gold Glover and Silver Slugger winner who also played for the Angels.
To Shelton's estimation, the daily struggle of baseball becomes as meaningful, or more meaningful, than the game itself.
"A lot of sport movies I don't like are about hitting home runs in the bottom of the ninth (inning)," he said. "That doesn't happen very often. I kind of made this movie for me.
"I could've made 100 movies out of it, actually. There are so many guys like (pitcher) 'Nuke' (LaLoosh) who had major league arms and five-cent heads. There are a lot of Crashes in Triple-A who just had bad luck, being in the wrong organization at the wrong time."
Actor Kevin Costner, who played Davis and also anchored the baseball classic "Field of Dreams," might off offer a chance to debate the standing of both movies.
Shelton isn't biting.
"You wouldn't really compare them," he said. "They're very different movies. (Field of Dreams) is more of a fairy tale. I don't mean that in any bad way at all. They're just very different. Mine is, this is what it's like folks. Get on the bus.
"But the women don't look like (Annie Savoy character) Susan Sarandon."
Shelton's favorite scene from the 1988 movie?
There's an argument between Davis and the umpire about a bang-bang play at home plate. The exchange centers on a word unfit for polite conversation, but feels right at home on a small-town baseball diamond.
"Kevin is great. The ump is great," Shelton said. "It's the absurdity of the minor leagues. Baseball is the one sport that stops for arguments and fights. It's all respected, then the game goes on."
The movie resonates to this day.
"Like any movie that does that, you have to care about the people," Shelton said. "It's funny. It feels timeless. But at its core, it's not really about baseball."
And oh, did it resonate.
Shelton was doing a Q&A session before a minor league game for the Durham Bulls, the namesake of his fictional baseball ride. A couple asked him if he would pose for a picture with their two sons.
"I've got kids and grandkids, so I said, 'What's your name?' " Shelton said. "The mother said, 'Go ahead, tell him.' He said, 'My name is Crash.' I looked at the other boy and said, 'I'm afraid to ask.' He said, 'My name is Nuke.' I've gotten letters from others around the country named Crash.
"But that was the only Nuke."
Baseball, man.
