The Battered Bastards of Baseball

I was talking to a college friend today. He played college level baseball. Though ball never continued farther than that for him he had some friends he followed who had gotten toward the minor leagues.
Our conversation was me telling him that I had been watching the HBO show reruns of East Bound and Down via Amazon Prime.
We got some laughs as he told he just how true the stereo-type of Kenny F-ing Powers really is.

From there he told me, "you've got to watch a Documentary on Netflix titled The Battered Bastards of Baseball" This is the true story of The 1975-1978 Portland Mavericks.
This is a true life story that is crazier than fiction. This Independent team was owned by Bing Russel, actor who played of Gunsmoke and father of Kurt Russel (who played on the team.)
My personal summary is that these guys were to baseball what Slapshot's ficticious team, The Charlestown Chiefs were to hockey.

To give you an idea, here is an actual team photo from back in the day:

The dog is actually part of the team and had a genuine role in the games. If you zoom in you can see the beer bottles in the hands of the players and the coaches.

The film trailer

Though this film is the Documentary, wikipedia says that the story has been picked up for a full feature movie, based on this true story. I think it could be a good movie.

Interesting thing about baseball and movies. Though I would not call myself a baseball fan or that I follow much baseball, I can say that there have been some really great movies about or surrounding baseball.

If you're looking for something good on Netflix, give this one a try.

I watched that a while back. Highly recommended. It's right up there with the best episodes of "30 for 30" when it comes to sports docs.

In reply to JohnRW1621:

This reminds me of a quote attributed to John Kruck of the Phillies: " Lady, I'm not an athlete, I'm a ball player!"

I'll put this on my watch list.

True fact: I'd rather go to the dentist than watch baseball on TV, but I thoroughly enjoy going to the ball park to see a game, even minor league.

"Just like old time baseball eh coach?"

Somewhat related (thinking about hockey), the movie Goon is pretty interesting. A surprisingly good movie based on a real guy, Doug Smith, who had a particular "skill".

The Goon ranks right up there with Slap Shot. There I said it.

Thanks for the heads up, that would have been a team worth watching, $375.75 a month.

Yeah, the players were only paid $375 per month but 300 guys showed up at the first year open try-outs for the chance to just play pro ball.

Online estimates says that $375 in 1975 would be like getting paid $1,700 today. That would be akin to just over $400 per week. That is what min wage workers of $10 make for a 40 hour week. I am sure that with practice and travel time they put in more than 40 hours. Point being, it was sub-minimum wages.

Appleseed wrote: The Goon ranks right up there with Slap Shot. There I said it.

Goon is awesome.