DURHAM, N.C. — In his new book “The Church of Baseball,” Ron Shelton recalls “Bull Durham” triumphing over a thousand doubters — how his story of sad-sack minor-leaguers put lollygagging in the national vocabulary, introduced candlesticks as a go-to wedding gift and prevailed as perhaps the world’s greatest sports movie.
In his tell-nearly-all memoir, Shelton describes himself as a first-time director only one failure away from painting houses, a screenwriter given the greenlight on a half-formed idea he first called “A Player to be Named Later.”
He based his story of love, loss and lava lizards partially on his experiences playing second base for the Baby Birds of Bluefield, West Virginia, where his hand-me-down wool jersey had two numbers on the back: 22, and 136 still faintly visible behind it.
