Whether you're a baseball fan or not, The Battered Bastards of Baseball, a Netflix original production currently available for streaming on the site, is easily one of the most raucously entertaining films to come out this year, and the best sports documentary in a while. Bastards is the story of the Portland Mavericks, who from 1973-77 were the only independent professional baseball team in the United States (all other minor-league outfits, then and now, were "farm teams" for the majors). Founded by ex-ball player/character actor Bing Russell, who during his Hollywood career was killed onscreen 126 times, "The Mavs" (as they were called by fans) were a wild-eyed rock-'n'-roll freakshow of a team that brought baseball fever to Oregon's (previously indifferent) biggest city.

The Mavs counted a left-handed catcher, a disgraced ex-Yankee pitcher (Jim Bouton, author of the infamous baseball tell-all Ball Four), a player/mascot who would set brooms on fire whenever the opposing team was being "swept" in a series, and Bing's son Kurt Russell (soon to outshine his dad as an actor) in their lineup. Actor/filmmaker Todd Field even served as bat boy. These eccentricities not only served to make the team popular in their day, but likely were an early inspiration for the now-ubiquitous "Keep Portland Weird!" mentality that has lent the city its unique character (and indeed, made it the butt of countless Portlandia jokes).

It's a classic Bad News Bears story, and directors Maclain and Chapman Way (who are, incidentally, grandsons of Bing Russell and nephews of Kurt) capture it with surprising confidence and skill for a first feature. Lots of major players are interviewed, and they're still total characters; their insane recollections are backed up by stacks of jaw-dropping, hilarious archival footage. The broom fires, the beer guts, the nutrageous '70s outfits... It's all here.

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Unorthodox behavior on the field was not just accepted by the elder Russell; it was encouraged. "Bing, undoubtedly overconfident, ordered the 1977 Mavericks championship rings before they even played their final game," Chapman Way told us in an e-mail interview. "Players have confirmed that the rings weren't fitted for the ring finger, but rather the middle one. Bing wore his Mavericks ring (which featured the head of a steer with hazardous longhorns) for the rest of his life."

These displays of cocksure outrageousness account for much of the appeal of Bastards beyond its obvious baseball demographic. This is by design: "I felt the story we wanted to tell, and the one that we thought was the most interesting, was about a man and his independent ball club that goes up against the entrenched powers of organized baseball," Way says. "That story doesn't require people to know the difference between ERA and an RBI to enjoy the ride. We were also interested in exploring the business side of baseball and its corporate culture, which we had never seen talked about much in a sports documentary."

(Way confides that, despite his baseball-centric lineage, he isn't much of a player himself. "I played high school baseball and was (at the top of my game) a mediocre left-handed pitcher. Thankfully, I was the lucky recipient of Big League Chew bubble gum delivered monthly to my doorstep courtesy of [BLC inventor/former Mavericks pitcher] Rob Nelson, which always helped elevate my perceived value amongst my Little League teammates.")

If the Mavericks were beloved by their fans, they were equally reviled by Major League Baseball. Aside from their unprofessional antics, it especially galled the majors that this ragtag bunch of misfits played kick-ass baseball, tearing down the lion's share of their opponents. The Mavs' style was theatrical and brash, but this wouldn't have made a dent if it weren't also effective. As a result, the majors wanted nothing more than to make the Mavs predictable enough to cash in on them, or shut them down.

The Mavericks, however, were untameable. The team's antics are so storied, some of the craziest tales ended up on the cutting room floor.

"Todd Field told us that, while on a long road trip to Boise, he was riding on the Maverick bus and really had to urinate. However, there was a strict (but completely unnecessary) rule that forbade the bus from ever stopping for bathroom breaks. Todd, however, still managed to work up the courage to quietly ask the bus driver if he would pull over," Way says. "Kurt Russell and Jim Bouton overheard this simple request and had a different plan in mind to enforce the no-stopping rule.

"Todd said that before he knew it, the bus driver had flung the door wide open while barreling down the I-5 freeway at 65 mph, and Kurt and Jim hoisted him down onto the last step, holding him by his shirt while he relieved himself, with the entire rest of the team chanting his name behind him."

If this kind of anarchism was unusual for baseball in the 1970s, it's nonexistent now. Way hopes that Bastards might help shake that up. "Independent baseball gives second chances to players who have been discarded and rejected from organized baseball, and gives local communities the opportunity to fall in love with a team that belongs to them," he says. "It's win-win for both the player and the city. Hopefully, this film can ignite a little discussion about the value of indy ball and its place in our modern sports world."

Hopefully. Either way, though, Battered Bastards of Baseball will find its fans.

Watch The Battered Bastards of Baseball on Netflix now >>

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