The Baseball Project Thrills Hall Audience
That sound emanating from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum on Saturday night was out of the ordinary for the Cooperstown institution – but music to the ears of fans of The Baseball Project, the popular indie-rock supergroup that writes and performs songs about the National Pastime.
Formed in 2007, the lineup that performed as part of a special event presented by the Cooperstown Concert Series inside the 200-seat Grandstand Theater included guitarist Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate), guitarist Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows), drummer Linda Pitmon (Zuzu’s Petals) and bassist Mike Mills (R.E.M.), along with longtime Boston Red Sox organist Josh Kantor, who doubled on the accordion.
“It’s so beautiful in the theater and it sounds really good,” said McCaughey during an interview soon after the band did their sound check. “I thought we’d be too loud but the acoustics are really good.”
“I remember coming here for the first time in the late ‘90s and I was really excited about being here,” added Wynn. “And the first thing I did when I came was go into the Grandstand Theater to see the film (the 12-minute multimedia presentation entitled The Baseball Experience) in there. So I remember how exciting that was, and now to be out there playing a show is amazing.”
For two hours, The Baseball Project thrilled the crowd by performing 28 songs from their vast repertoire. With McCaughey and Wynn handling most of the lead vocals, subjects included everything from Bernie Williams (“Monument Park”), Alex Rodriguez (“13”) and Sandy Koufax (“Long Before My Time”) to the 1986 Red Sox (“Buckner’s Bolero”), Dale Murphy (“To the Veterans Committee”) and Dock Ellis (“The Day Dock Went Hunting Heads”).
“At this point we’ve got a lot of songs to choose from so we can shake it up every night,” said Wynn. “It’s fun tonight because we’re playing two sets and we get to play a lot of material and cover a lot of different teams and a lot of baseball’s history and a lot of Hall of Famers. And then people who will never make the Hall of Fame.”
Prior to Saturday night, The Baseball Project had played in Cooperstown twice before, both times at a local brewery, including their most recent visit last August. This stop was the final show of a two-week tour.
“We really booked this tour around doing this show,” McCaughey. “We thought that this was too good of an opportunity not to come and do a show here, so we just put together a bunch of other dates.”
“We talked about this last time we walked through about how this be a great place to play,” added Wynn.
“I missed the two previous Cooperstown gigs because I was playing my other gig,” explained Kantor, referring to his work at Red Sox home games, “but I’m really excited to be here now.”
Exhibiting their deep love of the game’s long history, both McCaughey and Wynn came back from their initial trip to the Grandstand Theater determined to figure out what game is being depicted on the scoreboard made to resemble a Brewers vs. White Sox game at old Comiskey Park.
“We’ve got it narrowed down to the 1980s,” said a laughing McCaughey. “If we go online we can figure out what game this is.”
“And we have to find out who Steve and Renee are,” joked Wynn, a referring to a possibly fictional pair being congratulated on the scoreboard.
Bill Francis is a Library Associate at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
