PHILADELPHIA — I’m writing this column about a writer who is writing a screenplay about a writer. So before this gets any more meta than it already is, let’s get the details down.
Ron Shelton has created some of the most memorable sports movies in film history. He wrote "Blue Chips." He wrote and directed "Tin Cup" and, a few years before that, "White Men Can’t Jump" — the first 20 minutes of which is a stream of screen dialogue that reads and sounds like a dream. And, of course, his best film, and the film for which he is best known, is the 1988 classic "Bull Durham": Kevin Costner as Crash Davis, Susan Sarandon as Annie Savoy, Tim Robbins as Ebby Calvin “Nuke” Laloosh, life in the Carolina League, candlesticks and lava lizards and long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.
His next project is at once smaller and bigger than any of those. Shelton has obtained the option rights to a timeless piece of sportswriting: “What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?,” Richard Ben Cramer’s 1986 Esquire profile of the man who remains arguably the greatest hitter in baseball history.
