Nobody has to sell me on baseball counter-culture. I grew up with the Moustache Gang – the Oakland Athletics of the 1970s – and graduated to the words of Bill James by the time I was in high school..
Bing Russell is probably best known for being the father of actor Kurt Russell, but that sells the man way short. He lived the life I wanted to live. He grew up befriending and playing mascot to actual New York Yankee Hall-of-Famers like Lefty Gomez and Joe DiMaggio. (C’mon, Jim as if there’s anybody “like” Joe DiMaggio.) This was pretty cool as it’s a little known secret that the Yankees were the only baseball team in existence in the 30s, 40s, and 50s which explains all the World Series titles. Eventually, Bing grew up and graduated to minor league baseball. When his own ballplaying career fizzled, Bing turned to acting and made it without actually making it. He was Deputy Clem Foster on “Bonanza” for however many decades Bonanza ran. His greatest achievement as an actor is dying 126 times on screen.
Man, I wanna die 126 times on screen. I could totally re-invent death. Not unlike the Wilhelm Scream, I’d have a “Frog Croak” the kids would all emulate for years to come.
Best of all, when Bing got bored with acting, he created a single A baseball team out of nothing, and it ruled! In the words of Portland Maverick and best-selling author Jim Bouton, Bing’s outcasts were The Battered Bastards of Baseball.
Some background is needed here – Major League Baseball is organized at several levels. Most casual fans only see or understand the top level, the Major Leagues, the best of the best. Every major league team, however, has a “farm system,” a series of lower-level teams comprised of -generally younger- would-be major leaguers. The majority of professional baseball players never see the major leagues; they get stuck somewhere in the minors and eventually lose their talent, their dream, or both. This system of major league franchises owning minor league affiliates did not always use to be. It used to be that the minors were independent. The baseball was inferior, but it was honest; the teams cared primarily about winning, not promoting their best players as soon as they showed promise. By the 1960s, independent minor league franchises had been eradicated. At this time, every lower-level professional baseball team was owned by a major league team.
And this is where Bing Russell, actor, father, and baseball enthusiast comes in. Seeing a sudden vacancy in Portland with the departure of the PCL’s Portland Beavers, Bing paid $500 ($500! Imagine owning a professional baseball team for $500!) and got a license to play single A ball in the Northwest League. Now, all he needed were players. Pfft. How hard could that be, right? Keep in mind that every major league team of 26 athletes owns another, say, 100+ guys with a potential for major league status. In other words, anybody anywhere who showed major league talent should already be under contract.
And this is the part of the story I love, because nothing that prides itself on tradition ever covers the whole field, knowwhatI’msayin’? Turns out there are a
lot of talented baseball players who got overlooked or dismissed for terrible reasons … and all of them flocked to Portland in 1973 to create the Portland Mavericks. And it became a team that was fun to watch and fun to cheer for because it was comprised entirely of dudes who just wanted to play baseball. They knew damn well their major league aspirations were over but such rarely curtails a love of competition and the sport itself.
The Battered Bastards of Baseball is a documentary in love with its own story… so it’s good that there’s a quality one to tell here. It’s paced by former Mavericks, baseball writers, baseball’s first female GM (Lany Moss), and Kurt Russell himself who played on the team briefly. This was a real life Bad News Bears situation. The team, the owner, the players, the attitudes were an affront to the kind of baseball mind who thinks pinstripes are ostentatious. I can’t say that this film will do much for the kind of person who thinks kneeling during the anthem is a jailable offense, but I’d highly recommend it to those who find sporting personalities too stuffy.
♪Watch me invent a ball team
Watch me summon a crowd
Don’t sell me on traditional baseball, Jack
I don’t care if they never come back
Cuz it’s fume, fume, fume in the Northwest
Those guys resent my name
Cuz it took just a mere half a k
To rule this ball game! ♫
Not Rated, 80 Minutes
Director: Chapman Way, Maclain Way
Writer: Whomever inspires rebellion
Genre: Tales that make the uptight squirm
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Those who loves baseball for the sake of baseball
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Those who love baseball for the sake of order
♪ Parody Inspired by “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”
