Frank Peters

"The Battered Bastards of Baseball", premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival which features the Portland Mavericks, a minor-league baseball team, in the 1970's. Mavericks owner, actor Bing Russell, (father of actor Kurt Russell, who also played for the team) is the star of the film and a leading light of the documentary is Frank Peters, who managed the team and lived by his basic idioms. "Make sure the people who hate your guts are separated from those who haven't made up their minds." Portland, Oregon bar owner Frank Peters led the team for two seasons after Mavericks' first manager was suspended for assaulting an umpire. On August 31, 1974, Peters undertook the most unusual strategy of having each player play each position for an inning; Portland won the game over Tri-City Ports, 8-7. He also played regularly hitting 283/.358/.425 while going 1-1 with a save and a 5.63 ERA on the mound in '74. Frank Peters was born and raised in Corvallis, Oregon. Peters attended Oregon State University, playing on the 1962-63 Beavers basketball team that reached the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament which included NBA player Mel Counts; Terry Baker, football star who won the 1962 Heisman Trophy; and Steve Pauly, a multi-sport athlete who is a member of the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame. Peters dropped out of college his junior year to sign with the Baltimore Orioles. He played 10 seasons in the minor leagues, five of them in triple-A ball. "The New Yorker" once described Peters as "a platonic ideal of a baseball player...tall and rangy with a horsey handsome face and light blue eyes under blond eyebrows." Peters served as player-manager of the Mavericks in 1974 and '75. As manager, his motto was "No rules, no signs. And dope smokers must sit in the back of the bus."