In our quest to understand the zen of baseball movies for a feature pegged to this week’s release of the Jackie Robinson biopic “42,” we took the opportunity to chat by phone with Ron Shelton, king of the sports films. Shelton wrote and directed “Bull Durham” and “Cobb.”  His writing credits also include “Tin Cup” (golf), “White Men Can’t Jump” and “Blue Chips” (basketball), “The Best of Times” (football), and “The Great White Hype” and “Play it to the Bone” (boxing).  Shelton explained why baseball movies are hard to get made these days, how he actually doesn’t love sports movies very much, and how a truly accurate film about Babe Ruth would be X-rated. Read More »