Battered Bastards of Baseball (2014)

[Edgy MD]

Documentary film telling the story of veteran character actor Bing Russell (grandfather of a future Met hero), and his quixotic mid-career move to walk away from Holllywood and establish a mid-seventies independent minor league baseball team --- at that time the only indy team in the country, clashing with the powers of baseball and giving exactly zero shits.

Now streaming as a Netflix exclusive.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Liked. Some pretty extraordinary things came from that... only some of which I knew. If you had asked me to name a pioneer indy team I'd have said the Salt Lake Bees or Miami Miracle.

Bing sounded like an interesting guy who cast his team like a movie.

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, I think seventies and indy minors, I think Miami Miracle.

The story really lays out there what baseball could be, should be, and in fact was.

SPOILER ALERT!! Heartbreaking that his victory --- demanding a ridiculous sum as a buyout and winning it in arbitration --- was so Pyrrhic. Great, you got paid a crazy amount to shut down your team, the only independent minor league team in baseball. But shit, you took it and indeed shut it all down. Can't ask the guy to do all the heavy lifting, but it still hurt to see.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I saw Kurt Russell talking about this movie with David Letterman.

What's the deal on Matt Franco? Is he Kurt's sister's son?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Yes, one of Kurt's sister's kids.

Well, I mean, I went in knowing how it would end, so the court thing was a bonus I guess.

My complaints:

* I'd have liked to have heard from more former players: It was almost as though they intentionally picked out the most profane ones to give the story a raggedy edge. And at one point the batboy (whom I didn't realize grew up into a semi-famous guy) says something like "Ball Four was kid-stuff compared to what went on here!" but we don't really get much of it.

* We know the Mavs felt slighted by the big clubs "Cycloning Up" to beat them in the playoffs although you'd figure the Class A designation of the league likely allowed for Portland to have some regular season advantages they didn't (and shouldn't) have to apologize for. They didn't of course address that.