Talk:Portland Mavericks

Old and new Mavericks

@Torsodog: Baseballfan1948 rewrote the lead section in January, Special:Diff/1003336387. If a new team with the same name is being formed in a different league, should it have a separate article? They seem like distinct entities. I suggest retaining the pre-January version as the status quo ante bellum, until this can be sorted out.

@BINGRUSSELL: if you're thinking about suing people, please don't mention it here; it just creates more problems.

—Pelagic ( messages ) – (23:18 Sun 25, AEDT) 12:18, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

@BINGRUSSELL, calling my edits vandalism is absolutely silly, and calling for lawsuits is even sillier. Perhaps you should take a step back as you're obviously a little too close to this subject to edit it unbiasedly. I'm editing based on facts gathered from reliable sources.

@Pelagic, I was wondering how to handle this as well when I first edited. Per this story, "the Volcanoes bought the rights to the Mavericks for an undisclosed amount". So should it be treated as a different team or the same team? Considering it's the same rights, name, and the history of the original team isn't extremely extensive, I figured I'd just keep it as the same article. I planned on rewriting it soon to better explain the situation, but never got around to it yet. Thoughts? --Torsodog^Talk 18:19, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

The more I look into this, the more I'm convinced that this should be one article. The Keizer Times describes the team's history as, "After a 44-year hiatus, the Portland Mavericks will return to action as a part of the four-team independent Mavericks League", indicating that this "new" iteration of the team is actually simply a continuation of the "old" team. Additionally, this team is using the exact same name and logo. Those things, coupled with the fact that the rights were literally purchased, leads me to think that this is one team with one history. I'm not 100% sold though as it's kind of a strange situation. Are there any other similar past examples that we can look to for how this was handled? --Torsodog^Talk 19:26, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi, @Torsodog, thanks for the extra information. I find it remarkable that, after a 44-year hiatus, there were still rights to sell. If we do end up with one article rather than two, I hope it can be written in a way that the original Mavericks doesn’t get overshadowed due to recentism. Despite his closeness to the topic causing a strong reaction, I think there is a valid basis to Bing's concerns. An additional factor: is the new team notable enough for a stand-alone article or is it toosoon? The existing article might be the only place to cover them, or perhaps as a section in an article on the four-team league? With a single Mavericks article covering both, I think the main areas of difficulty would be the opening paragraph and infobox: not only are they what readers see first, but they are grabbed by Google, Alexa, DBpedia and the like. Pelagic ( messages ) – (05:06 Tue 27, AEDT) 18:06, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Posted before seeing Bing's reply below, I had the edit box open and fell asleep! Pelagic ( messages ) – (05:11 Tue 27, AEDT) 18:11, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Looking at 2014 return in light of what's said above re. "bought the rights". It seems to me now that there were three teams: the 2014 Mavericks usurped or resurrected the trademarks (not a lawyer, so not implying any special meaning here) of the 1970s Mavericks, then the 2014 entity sold their "rights" to the 2021 Mavericks. The Keizer Times may be playing up the continuous history angle for whatever reason. Pelagic ( messages ) – (04:39 Tue 27, AEST) 18:39, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

I haven't found any reliable sources to back up anything written in the "2014 return" section yet. I will continue to dig, but all that seems to exist are primary sources from either their website or facebook/linkdin, etc, so who knows what parts of that are accurate, if any. As far as your speculation, you could be right, but who knows? All we can really go off of is what has been written in reliable sources, no? The user that removed any mention of the original iteration of the Mavericks in the lead, though, was definitely in the wrong. I've restored all of that and the article doesn't really suffer from recentism anymore. In terms of the infobox, I don't see much of a problem there, personally, as it retains all of the original info in addition to a few bits about the new league as well. All 4 teams in this new league have some sort of prior history in the minor leagues. Two of the teams are based off of another defunct minor league team and the fourth is the Salem Senators, which has had several iterations through the years. I don't really see any reason to separate all of these teams out into different articles and I don't think that the Mavericks should really be any different, especially given what some of the sources have provided. --Torsodog^Talk 07:20, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

@Torsodog. I assume you know Bing Russell died in 2003. Roricka (talk) 13:41, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I do. --Torsodog^Talk 14:28, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

The Keizer outfit has no rights to the logos or history of the original team. They are located in Salem and not Portland. They are a proposed amateur adult league that has never played. Not one game. The Portland Mavericks were a professional team that played 5 years and were celebrated nationwide, gracing the cover of the Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, and an unprecedented two episodes of Joe Garagiola’s Baseball show on ABC. Yes, I know my Maverick lore, yes, I am clise to the subject, yes, like you I am a baseball man, and suspect you and I have a great deal in common. However, conflating social media announcements of a non-existing amateur ballclub and league into this page on a well documented actual team, defies all logic. BINGRUSSELL (talk) 10:37, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree with you that the Keizer Times may be playing up the continuous history angle. However, the Keizer Times has nothing to do with the Portland Mavericks. The Portland Mavericks newspapers of record were the Oregonian and Portland Journal. For the sole reason that they were the papers in Portland that wrote about Portland professional sports teams like the Mavs, Timbers, and Trailblazers. The distance between a bonafide newspaper and sports team and an online pub and opportunistic individual creating a fantasy sports franchise is vast and nonsensical. BINGRUSSELL (talk) 00:33, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm well aware of how newspapers work, and they aren't specifically aligned with baseball teams. Any newspaper can report on any team at any time. This league is not a "fantasy". It is a legitimate league as confirmed by several news outlets. Do you have any reliable sources to back up your claims? If so, they'd be a great help in clearing things up here. As a personal side note, if you are really affiliated with the original team, it seems strange that you'd be so hellbent on deriding this new league and team considering it's trying to continue a legacy of independent baseball in Oregon after being screwed by MLB... not all that dissimilar from Bing Russell's (who you've weirdly claimed to be) situation, no? --Torsodog^Talk 07:20, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Here is a story from The Oregonian about the team confirming that they bought the rights. Here is an interview with the new Mavericks manager, Alan Embree and a old manager, Frank Peters (a primary source, but still establishing some continuation of the brand and its past history). --Torsodog^Talk 01:03, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Debut game no-hitter?

Was the Mavs’ debut game actually a no-hitter, as is depicted in the movie about them? I found a reference here (https://miscbaseball.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/mavs4.jpg) but it’s just a blog, which I’m not sure qualifies as a reliable source, and also, it’s not clear from what I can see in this article, if that game was actually their very first game. But if that’s true, it’s certainly notable enough to be mentioned in the 1973 section. Roricka (talk) 13:50, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Ah, to answer my own question. It was not their debut game. This link (https://miscbaseball.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/the-start-of-the-portland-mavericks-in-1973/) shows that it was apparently the second game of the doubleheader, which they swept, the day before their home opener in Portland. Roricka (talk) 13:59, 2 July 2023 (UTC)