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  • bike friendly
  • bug spray available
  • community event
  • food vendors on-site
  • picnics allowed

Chapman and Maclain Way’s energetic telling of one of baseball’s great, unheralded stories is as much about independent spirit as it is about the game. When Portland, Oregon, lost its longtime minor-league affiliate, Bing Russell—who briefly played ball professionally before enjoying a successful Hollywood acting career—bought the territory and formed a single-A team to operate outside the confines of major-league baseball. When they took the field in 1973, the Mavericks—the only independent team in America—started with two strikes against them. What did Deputy Clem from Bonanza know about baseball? Or Portland, for that matter? The only thing uniting his players, recruited at open tryouts, was that no other team wanted them. Skeptics agreed that it could never work.

But Bing understood a ballplayer’s dreams, and he understood an audience. His quirky, unkempt castoffs won games, and they won fans, shattering minor-league attendance records. Their spirit was contagious, and during their short reign, the Mavericks—a restaurant owner turned manager, left-handed catcher, and blackballed pitcher among them—brought independence back to baseball and embodied what it was all about: the love of the game.

This is a DRIVE-IN!

$5, suggested donation

  • Director Chapman Way will introduce the film
  • Lot opens at 6:00 PM

    Spots are first come, first served. There will be a designated area in front of the screen if you’d prefer to bring a chair & sit al fresco

  • Film begins at sunset (approx. 8:00 PM)
  • Free bike valet courtesy of Bike Newport (tune-ups for a small charge)
  • Tallulah on Thames taco cart, Le Petit Gourmet, Tricycle Ice Cream & Boru Noodle Bar will be on-site selling food
  • Picnics welcome

Rain Venue: Casino Theater, 9 Freebody Street, Newport

Run time: 73 minutes
Directors: Chapman Way, Maclain Way
Producers: Juliana Lembi, Nancy Schafer
The Battered Bastards of Baseball
This is a past event

Chapman and Maclain Way’s energetic telling of one of baseball’s great, unheralded stories is as much about independent spirit as it is about the game.”

Sundance Film Festival

Chapman and Maclain Way's rollicking, rousing documentary will connect with anyone who's ever thumbed their nose at authority.”

Los Angeles Film Festival

This documentary struck me out of left field… Terrific work by co-directors Chapman Way and Maclain Way. The film is so engrossing, American and wild, it should be remade as a feature.”

 New York Daily News

A quixotic Hollywood actor (and father of Kurt Russell) brazenly takes on Major League Baseball in this rousing underdog story.

Variety

A charming movie that transcends America's Game.

The Hollywood Reporter

Baseball buffs are the logical audience, of course, but it’s hard to imagine anyone not being seduced by Russell’s irrepressible joie de vivre, and his intense personalization of a game that has become increasingly depersonalized with each passing decade. Russell died in 2003, but in this movie his spirit lives, and one hopes that it may prove infectious.”

Presenting sponsor of newportFILM Outdoors