The Associated Press Vol. 2 from the Baseball Project is much like Vol. 1: hit and miss.
| Music review |
| ‘Vol. 2: High and Inside’ |
| Artist: The Baseball Project |
| Label: Yep Roc |
| Price: $10.99 |
The lineup of Steve Wynn, Scott McCaughey, Peter Buck and Linda Pitmon again rocks out to original tunes about the national pastime. The lyrics sometimes read like clunky prose written by baseball geeks, and a few musical choices are odd (a klezmer-style lament about Tony Conigliaro?).
Still, the band bats better than .500, thanks to considerable help off the bench. One especially lusty cut is a witty tribute to the Minnesota Twins sung by Hold Steady’s Craig Finn and titled “Don’t Call Them Twinkies.” Also pitching in are Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo and Steve Berlin of Los Lobos.
As with the band’s debut release in 2008, the subject matter is eclectic. The Bird is the word on “1976,” which remembers the late Mark “The Bird” Fidrych, and “Ichiro Goes to the Moon” is a rollicking piece of bubble gum that suggests the Mariners’ right fielder can do anything he wants. Several songs sympathize with much-maligned players from the past, among them Pete Rose, Roger Clemens and Bill Buckner.
For some fans, the biggest beef will be the focus on the American League, particularly the Red Sox and Yankees. Can we please get a Cubs tune on Vol. 3?
CHECK THIS OUT: The closing song “Here Lies Carl Mays” is the band’s best yet, an acoustic ballad about the Yankee who threw the only fatal pitch in big-league history. When McCaughey recalls a World Series where Mays “pitched three complete games with an ERA of 1.73,” he manages to make even the recitation of statistics poignant.
