Kurt Russell is one of the great icons in geek culture. He started out as a child star for Disney, and went on to play Elvis, as well as star in the John Carpenter classics The Thing, and Big Trouble in Little China. Now he’s recalling his days as a minor league baseball player in a new documentary, and it’s gotten rave notices at Sundance.
The documentary is called The Battered Bastards of Baseball, and it’s the true story of a minor league team that was launched by Russell’s father Bing, the Portland Mavericks. Kurt played on the team, and he was also the vice president.
As this documentary tells us, The Mavericks were a ragtag bunch of misfits, and they had the first female general manager in baseball, future director Todd Field (The Hangover) as a batboy, and they also inspired Big League Chew gum.
Bastards has garnered such a good buzz already that Justin Lin, director of Fast and Furious, has made a deal to make this story as a live action feature. Let’s face it, we haven’t had a good sports movie in a while, and if Kurt Russell can deliver a great documentary about a long, lost footnote in the game’s history, we can’t wait to see it.
