The Baseball Project – 3rd

The Baseball Project hit a triple with 3rd....
The Baseball Project : 3rd
7.8 Yep Roc
2014 

The Baseball Project : 3rdIt seems like an idiosyncratic one-off: take songwriter Steve Wynn, add two members of R.E.M. (QRO album review), the much-travelled Scott McCaughey (QRO interview) and Linda Pitmon, and put them together to make songs about… baseball?!? Even the group’s name, ‘The Baseball Project’, screams ‘one-time-only side project that’ll be forgotten in a year.’ But they formed back in 2007, and this is their third release, appropriately titled ‘3rd’, and it’s a highly enjoyable collection of songs for fans & non-fans alike.

If one can break baseball games down into thirds of three innings each, 3rd can roughly be broken down into three types of songs: funny stories about baseball, great stories about baseball, and sad stories about baseball. Yet even within/across that, the musical styles change. “¡Hola America!” is an optimistic gallop about Cuban players defecting to the Major Leagues, but “A Boy Named Cy” is a pessimistic gallop about Cy Young never winning the award that bears his name. “From Nails to Thumbtacks” is the catchy anti-hero rock about Lenny Dykstra, while “To the Veteran’s Committee” is the catchy good-guy rock in favor of Dale Murphy being put in the Hall of Fame. There’s the twang-y ode to the fading “Box Scores”, but also the jaunty reminder to save your collectibles in “The Baseball Card Song”.

At eighteen tracks, there are some swings and misses, mostly in terms of going on too long or not being clever enough: “Monument Park” is a sad piece about playing center field in the shadow of Yankees greats that’s about as interesting as Bernie Williams, while “Extra Inning of Love” is much funnier as an idea than as a song. And storytelling songs naturally lose something on repeated listens, like any hurler with one pitch this side of Mariano Rivera. It might also have been nice to have a few more ‘indie’ songs, such as Pitmon’s “Pascual On the Perimeter” (detailing a pitcher getting lost on his way to Fulton County Stadium”), but baseball ain’t ‘indie’. And the record could have been just crazy stories like that, “The Day Dock Went Hunting Heads” (about Doc Ellis, who threw a no-hitter while on acid and beaned the Big Red Machine) or “Larry Yount” (the failed prospect whose younger brother Robin would make it to the Hall of Fame).

Like with any ball club, a fan’s gonna have songs that are his favorites, and ones that he wish were still in the minor leagues. But The Baseball Project are more than just a side-project, much more, so here’s to 3rd (will the next record be named Home?…).

The Baseball Project – The Day That Doc Went Hunting Heads

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