The Baseball Project

One way of assessing (okay, the MAIN way of assessing) if a dude is normal or not when I meet him is whether or not he's a sports fan. If he doesn't like sports I scrunch my nose "hmm...that's weird" and the odds of us being boys are slim to none. Which is strange, since my oldest friend from high school and my father both knew exactly NOTHING about sports. I know that's not right, I know it's like someone not wanted to be friends with me cause I don't care about Bukowski, but it's how it is. And I'm sure this filter has been sharpened from living in the neighborhood I have for the last ten years, where it's actually an indie rock-cool badge of honor to hate sports. Grrr. There is no quicker path to the inside crowd of the uber-hipsters on my block than to let it be known that high school was a nightmare for you cause you were abused by the jocks.

And it goes double for musicians - I'm always thrilled whenever bands or musicians I love are sports fans. Makes me like them a lil more; not only are they successful artists, but them liking football or baseball makes them somehow more normal to me. So imagine how happy I am that two of my all-time dudes, Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate) and Peter Buck (duh) along with the dude from the Young Fresh Fellows are not only baseball fans, but in fact have put out a whole album ABOUT baseball! And, even better, the first single doesn't suck. And, in fact, namechecks the perfect mini-generation of ballplayers for me, names and events that were around right when I started learning about the game or just before (even better.) Oscar Gamble! The Ray Fosse play, Rick Wise's no-hitter with two home runs!! Enjoy!