The Baseball Project Played a Double-Header at Asbury Lanes, 8/3/14

Field of Dreams

I was 16 years old in 1986. I was a 16-year-old Yankee fan growing up in a Mets household. My memories of the last Yankee World Series victory to that point were a little hazy. I could recall being at Saturday night mass at St. Pat's down the block from my grandmother's apartment in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. The priest dispensed with the sermon so that we could all get home to watch the Yankees and the Dodgers in the '78 Series.

The Yankees finished second to the Red Sox, 5.5 games back, in 1986. The Mets, though. The Mets won the National League East by 21.5 games behind players like Gooden, Strawberry, Hernandez, Carter, Orosco, Darling, Fernandez, Knight, and Mookie. They were on in our house every night of the week. Even though the Mets won the NLCS 4 games to 2, I remember the series as a particularly thrilling one with the last two games going 12 and 16 innings, respectively.

I've never been one of those people who likes the Yankees and hates the Mets. I couldn't. My dad and my brother love them too much. I sat on the sofa of my uncle's house in Long Island one evening in late October. My brother and my cousin were asleep. Our parents were out for the evening. I was basically alone, tears welling up in my eyes in the 10th inning of Game 6 at the prospect of the Mets' not only losing the Series, but also losing it to the Red Sox, the team (maybe the THING) I most dislike in all the world. I won't recap the bottom of the 10th; but when Stanley threw that wild pitch and Buckner booted Mookie's ball at first, I jumped around that basement with tears streaming down my face, laughing like an idiot.

I'm not sure when I heard it in 1986; but that same summer, R.E.M. released Lifes Rich Pageant. That record (or cassette, in my case) changed me forever. I've bored you with this before; but up to that point, I'd never paid much attention to anything remotely underground. I realize that R.E.M.'s fourth album launched the band into mainstream consciousness, but it sent me on a trek during which I found The Smiths, The Replacements, The Cure, and R.E.M.'s entire back catalog. I always loved Reckoning in particular.

Michael Stipe is R.E.M.'s frontman, of course. All of the songs, though, were always credited as "Berry, Buck, Mills, and Stipe." And without the jangle of Peter Buck's guitar or the vocal harmonies provided by Mike Mills, there is no R.E.M.; and I'm wearing faded Zeppelin T-shirts.

That's all a long lead-in to illustrate the fact that I would never miss a show featuring Mike Mills and Peter Buck -- along with Scott McCaughey (The Minus 5 and, essentially, the 5th member of R.E.M. since 1994), Steve Wynn (The Dream Syndicate), and Linda Pitmon -- playing songs about baseball. Even a 7-hour drive home from our weekend in Buffalo couldn't make me decide to stay home. The show was everything I could have hoped it would be.

Known as The Baseball Project, the band have released 3 albums since 2007. Their catalog consists of all original songs dealing with baseball. It's got to be a fun and interesting songwriting exercise to stick to a single topic and produce a set of songs as witty and universal as what The Baseball Project have achieved. Last night, the band played two sets. The first followed a setlist, while the second consisted of audience requests.

The theme of living in the shadow of others was common. "Larry Yount" tells the story of Hall-of-Famer Robin Yount's older brother, who appeared as a pitcher in just a single game and never faced a hitter. "Fucking Ted Williams" takes the point of view of the last man to hit .400 who can't understand why seemingly lesser players are loved so much more than he is. And "Monument Park" is a plea to get Bernie Williams, maybe the third greatest center fielder (behind a couple of pretty good ones named DiMaggio and Mantle) in Yankee history, a plaque in Yankee Stadium. Bernie gets his plaque in 2015; but -- especially over the last two seasons -- I've thought it kind of odd and unfair the way he was just gone from the Yankees one day with no fanfare and no farewell tour.

Mike Mills attempted to make the case for former Atlanta Brave Dale Murphy's enshrinement in Cooperstown -- both in the song "To The Veterans' Committee" and during the brief, star-struck conversation I had with him after the show. The band took some of the blame for Jack McDowell's famous gesture to the Yankee faithful, telling the story of a night of carousing that preceded it in "The Yankee Flipper." "Harvey Haddix" tells the story of that pitcher's tossing 12 PERFECT INNINGS only to lose the game in the 13th.

Oh. And there were a few covers. The Dream Syndicate's "Days of Wine and Roses" was a nice surprise. When the band came out for their encore, drummer Linda Pitmon said, "I'm interested to see what we'll be playing. I hear decisions have been made."

"Oh. I'm first?" said Mills, and the band launched into "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville" from my favorite R.E.M. album, Reckoning, with Mills taking lead vocals. Then McCaughey said, "Let's do it!" and the band closed with The Clique's "Superman," which R.E.M. covered on, yes, Lifes Rich Pageant.

It was really, for me, an unbelievable evening. I thought all night of all the people who would have loved the show and couldn't make it: friends, my brother, my dad. And I smiled with recognition at most of the stories in the songs. I even got a couple of brief chances to speak with every single member of the band  -- my heroes Mills and Buck included.

At one point, MJ, who was doing sound, asked me, "So... ...Did it live up to everything you hoped for?"

"R.E.M. and baseball? Are you kidding?"

Here are some pictures. The rest are at Flickr.