New sounds at baseball games? Music to our ears
To answer the next obvious question: Yes, Wynn and McCaughey have become fantasy-baseball diehards, courtesy of a league established as part of the Baseball Project pre-release promo. They are not especially proud that the accessible-by-anyone rosters reveal them as owners of Chone Figgins and Orlando Cabrera, respectively.
"There's still something about reading the box scores every day," McCaughey said. "It's my one time I tune out from everything. It's like my meditation or yoga." Wynn, similarly, likens box-score perusal to "a religious experience."
McCaughey and Winn won't venture a guess as to how the record will be received, though they're encouraged by the early response from baseball blogs and people within the game. While they have no idea what to expect in terms of airplay or sales -- "We don't really know how many hipster indie music fans like baseball, and vice versa," McCaughey quips -- a recent Late Show appearance with David Letterman went over well. Additionally, Winn and Pitmon will perform some of the songs during All-Star Week in New York City (McCaughey and Buck will be touring Europe with R.E.M.).
In any event, they're already flush with ideas for the next Baseball Project record. Wynn riffed about a possible Tim Raines song: "Think about it, something like, 'He slides headfirst so he doesn't crack the vial.' Axl Rose could sing that."
McCaughey, for his part, has already come up with a Twins-themed couplet (Harmon and Hrbek/Gagne and Gaetti) and hopes to base a few tunes on pitchers featured in Rob Trucks' wildly entertaining Cup of Coffee .
But don't wait for the next disc. Buy Volume One: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails on July 8. Learn from it. Do air-guitar windmills to its strains and squeals. Send copies of it to your local stadium P.A./music/entertainment director and request that they play it often; blackmail them if you have to. Our ears, not to mention future generations of fans who will grow up in a Who Let the Dogs Out-free universe, will thank us later.
