The Baseball Project

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The Baseball Project

POSTED: Monday, July 21, 2008, 7:11 PM

Filed Under: Music Album

Put me in coach.

The Baseball Project
Vol. 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails
(Yep Roc)

This year’s 100th anniversary of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” only underscores the fact that no recent baseball songs have captured the public’s imagination — even John Fogerty’s “Centerfield” is almost a quarter-century old now. With The Baseball Project, four veteran rockers have worked hard to change this sorry state of affairs.

R.E.M.’s Scott McCaughey and Steve Wynn of Dream Syndicate front the group, as they summarize signature moments in the game’s history, from the breaking of the color line (“Jackie’s Lament”) to Fernando Valenzuela’s prominence (“Fernando,” with lyrics in Spanish) to Mark McGwire’s saga (“Broken Man”). “The Death of Ed Delahanty” commemorates the 1890s Phillies slugger who met his demise by drunkenly falling off a Niagara Falls bridge in 1903 (“He socked some homers, four in one game / when the ball was dead and the fences far / … Big Ed don’t let them weigh you down / Big Ed don’t let us weigh you down”), and five one-time Phils are mentioned in “Past Time.” Bonus points if you spot the allusion to Richie Ashburn.

If occasionally a little too esoteric, this hard-rocking Volume 1 proves that an album with a Ken Burns-level love of baseball certainly doesn’t have to sound like “Ashokan Farewell.”

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