THE ONE TEAM THAT HAD A PAIR.

There is obvious love for the game of baseball in this documentary about the rise and fall of the Portland Mavericks, a 1970s Minor League team. It’s also a passionate family affair, as the team was owned by former actor Bing Russell, his son Kurt played in it before embarking on his Hollywood career, and the film was directed by Kurt’s nephews. Together with former players, and successful filmmaker Todd Field who used to be a batboy for the team, the Hollywood star reminisces about just how maverick the team was, its legacy and how unfairly the team was brought down by a system that wouldn’t tolerate independence. Tons of archive footage and good interviews boost this underdog story that has a lot of pride in what those “Bastards” accomplished.

2014-U.S. 73 min. Color. Produced by Juliana Lembi. Directed by Chapman Way, Maclain Way.

Trivia: First shown at Sundance, then released on Netflix.

Last word: “I was a big baseball fan growing up, and still am. In high school I started, because of my older brothers influenced me, I started getting into independent film and music too, and one of the things I realized when we were first starting to make this documentary that I thought was really cool was the idea that there’s a very strong sports community but there’s also a very strong independent film, independent music community, there’s not too much overlap between these groups. [The] idea that we could make a documentary on a sports team and take it to film festivals and engage these communities… and these people who are like, ‘You know what? I liked baseball as a kid but now I feel the reconnection to the game,’ and that’s been really, it’s been a fantastic feeling being able to do that.” (Maclain Way, Nerdist)

IMDb