The Baseball Project - Vol. 2 High and Inside
Album Review: The Baseball Project – Vol. 2 High and Inside
by Chuck Norton
Baseball and music: Two of my favorite things. Those two worlds collide on March 1, 2011 when the second album by The Baseball Project – a collective of veteran musicians whose love for baseball nears that of music – is released.
Featuring Steve Wynn (The Miracle 3, The Dream Syndicate, Gutterball, Danny & Dusty), Scott McCaughey (The Minus 5, Young Fresh Fellows, R.E.M.), Linda Pitmon (The Miracle 3, Golden Smog) and Peter Buck (R.E.M.) the group drew critical acclaim for their first album, Vol. 1 Frozen Ropes & Dying Quails.
Their follow-up album, Volume 2: High and Inside , includes guest appearances by Craig Finn (Hold Steady), Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie), Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), Ira Kaplin (Yo La Tengo, Chris Funk and John Moen (The Decemberists) and Robert Lloyd.
If you are a baseball fan and like classic Alternative/roots rock, you’ll probably like this album. All the songs are baseball-centric with most about specific teams or events – like the 1986 World Series blunder by Bill Buckner captured perfectly in song on “Buckner’s Bolero”.
Craig Finn’s ode to the Minnesota Twins – “Don’t Call Them Twinkies” – is a highlight of the album; although the Atlanta Braves fan in me takes issue to the 1991 World Series when we all know that Kent Hrbek pulled Ron Gant off first base. Despite that, I got tingles when Finn sung about (and I’m paraphrasing here): “raising a toast to Kirby and Tom Kelley”.
The albums final track, “Here Lies Carl Mays” is outstanding and may be my favorite of the album. The haunting tale chronicles the the life of Carl Mays from a first-person perspective. Mays is infamous for throwing a pitch that killed Ray Chapman in 1920. Chapman is the only player to die from being hit by a thrown pitch in baseball history.
The album does have some lesser points like “Panda and the Freak” about current San Francisco Giants Pablo Sandoval (nicknamed “Panda”) and Tim Lincecum who is known as “The Freak”. While the song is topical it didn’t really appeal to me in content or musically.
If you are not a baseball fan, or only a casual fan, this album is likely not for you. But if you do enjoy the history of the game of baseball and/or enjoy concept albums/acts, The Baseball Project delivers a solid sophomore album.
For those you old enough to remember the Braves of the early-1980′s, here’s the review as a metaphor: The album ranks as Bruce Benedict. A few high points, a low point here or there, but solid and well respected within the game. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
It’s nice to hear Scott McCaughey sing out on this; brings back happy memories of those freewheeling Young Fresh Fellows songs of yore.
Speaking of the Braves, I’m a bit disappointed that there are no Braves-related songs on the first two albums (particularly given the band’s REM connection). I have a couple of suggestions for Vol. 3 – “Run, Lonnie, Run” and “Dale F***ing Murphy.”
Larvell – I couldn’t agree with you more. I thought about that when I was giving the album a listen.
[...] (with whom I had to pass on interviewing because timing with The Luke’s birth) is a band on their second album of writing nothing but baseball-related music. They aren’t just some unknowns either. They are [...]