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Annotating “They Played Baseball” by The Baseball Project

The Baseball Project is a baseball-themed rock supergroup. The active roster includes:

Scott McCaughey [Young Fresh Fellows, The Minus 5, R.E.M.] (Vocals, Guitars, Keyboards, Bass, Percussion, SF Giants)

Steve Wynn [The Dream Syndicate, The Miracle 3, Gutterball] (Vocals, Guitars, New York Yankees)

Linda Pitmon [The Miracle 3, Zuzu’s Petals] (Drums, Vocals, Minnesota Twins)

Peter Buck [R.E.M.] (Guitars, Bass, Banjo, Washington Senators)

Mike Mills [R.E.M.] (Bass, Vocals, Atlanta Braves)

The Baseball Project started when McCaughey and Wynn met and discovered a mutual love of The National Pastime sometime around 1992. It wasn’t until 2007 that the pair sat down to write and records songs. “We don’t have any rules about what constitutes a baseball song,” McCaughey explains on the band’s website. “It can be anything from a character study of an obscure guy from the 1920s, to something that just happened, to something completely ridiculous like Extra Inning of Love, which takes the baseball-as-love metaphor and tries to stretch it as far as it will go. They can be fictional songs or non-fictional songs. The great thing with baseball is, we’ll never run out of things to write about!”

The Baseball Project has released three albums, performed The Star-Spangled Banner and Take Me Out to the Ballgame at numerous ballparks, and recorded the theme song for Adult Swim’s animated series Squidbillies in 2013.

Their songs are endlessly catchy and often dense with baseball references. Here’s one of their best, with 30 footnotes to fill in any backstory you may not already know. Read the rest of this entry »