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SCHEDULE
PDX Mavericks Baseball Club
Manager
Dan Rigs
Baseball@nwibl.org |
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Sundance Film Review:
‘The 1970's Battered Bastards of Baseball’ |
2019 Roster 3/26
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Credit Gary Borders
Sundance Film Review: ‘The Battered Bastards of Baseball’
If you love baseball, or if you
just enjoy a joyous, hilarious and
inspiring story (albeit
profanity-laced), then check out
“The Battered Bastards of Baseball”
on Netflix. It’s a 2014 documentary
about the Portland Mavericks, an
independent Class A minor-league
baseball team founded in 1973 by
Bing Russell — a retired actor who
played Deputy Clem on “Bonanza” for
13 years. He is the dad of Kurt
Russell, of “Tombstone” fame, who
also played for the team as a young
man and contributes heavily to the
film. Russell jokes that his dad,
who was a true showman, was killed
126 times on camera.
After
“Bonanza” was canceled, Bing was
out of a job and decided to start
the team. And what a team of
pot-bellied, beer-swilling,
cigarette-smoking misfits they
were! Russell held open tryouts to
pick his players for what was the
only minor league team in America
not affiliated with a major league
team. That means its players were
almost certainly never going to
make it to the big leagues. But it
also meant Portland fans actually
identified with the players,
because they weren’t called up
after a few months. The players
stuck around. Fans nearly filled
the cavernous stadium, setting
attendance records for short-season
minor-league baseball.
The
Mavericks gave the fans plenty of
reasons to return to the ballpark.
This motley crew relied on speed
and strong defense to beat the
other teams in the Northwest League
— who had nicer uniforms and
flatter bellies. The Mavericks won
the division title four straight
seasons with a crew that included
Jim Bouton. He was the former
Yankee knuckleball pitcher who was
ostracized after writing “Ball
Four,” which exposed the seamier
side of the game — drug use,
womanizing and other unseemly
behavior.
After its
publication, no team would touch
Bouton. He retired and took up
acting. Five years later, he was
playing with the Mavericks where he
went 5-1 in his only season there.
That prompted Ted Turner to sign
him to pitch for the Atlanta
Braves. Bouton is also semi-famous
for taking a concoction invented by
fellow Mavericks pitcher Rob Nelson
— a bubblegum alternative to
chewing tobacco — to the Wrigley
company. And thus was born Big
League Chew.
Russell kept
30 players on the roster, much
higher than other teams, because he
believed some players deserved a
final chance to play ball. The
team’s speedy outfielder, Reggie
Thomas, later was rumored to be an
FBI informant. He disappeared in
1984 and hasn’t been seen since.
Pitcher Larry Colton quit teaching
English to join the Mavericks. Five
years earlier, he had made it to
the big leagues for two innings.
Colton later wrote a number of
books, including one nominated for
a Pulitzer Prize. Then-batboy Todd
Field, who contributes some of the
film’s funniest and wittiest lines,
grew up to become an acclaimed
actor, screenwriter and director.
After five seasons, Major
League Baseball had enough of being
upstaged by Russell and his motley
Mavericks. The league took back its
territory and brought back a Class
AAA team.
Portland fans
were left only with fond memories
of a team that kept a dog in the
dugout, who would be allowed to
wander out in the field if the
Maverick’s pitcher needed a rest.
Utility infielder JoGarza, would
run around the stadium with a broom
as the team “swept” its opponents.
“Battered Bastards” depicts
a magical time in baseball, guys
playing for $400 a month for fans
who showed up in droves. And a
grand time was had by all.
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