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The Baseball Project, "Vol. 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails" (Yep Roc)

More people may watch football, but baseball is arguably our most beloved sport.

AP / YEP ROC RECORDS (ENLARGE)
R.E.M.'s Peter Buck helped orchestrate the gritty CD, The Baseball Project: 'Vol. 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails,' which celebrates and probes the seamier sides of big league ball through the ages.
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RELATED LINKS: • PHOTOS: Subjects addressed in The Baseball Project • MYSPACE: Hear to Baseball Project tunes • YouTube: The band on Letterman's show • Atlanta Braves page • Chop Chick blog

Football fans take six months off and basketball fans ignore their sport until the playoffs. True baseball fans, however, suffer a year-round obsession, can talk today's stats and the merits of yesteryear's stars at the drop of a sweat-rimmed billed cap and have a greater sense of right and wrong than anyone this side of the pulpit.

That's why The Baseball Project's "Vol. 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails" is like a drive to the gap with the bases loaded. Released by a group of veteran indie rockers as the All-Star game approaches, "Frozen Ropes" confronts the sport in all its glory and infamy.

This is no twangy "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" vanity project. Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate, Miracle 3) and Scott McCaughey (R.E.M., Young Fresh Fellows, Minus 5) have created a tapestry of baseball mythology all their own, chronicling the sport as it stands in the new century — at times tarnished but still completely irresistible.

With the help of R.E.M.'s Peter Buck and drummer Linda Pitmon, Wynn and McCaughey craft 13 original songs that take on the sport's history of racism in "Jackie's Lament," "Satchel Paige Said" and "Fernando," its flawed greats ("The Death of Big Ed Delahanty" and a song about Ted Williams with an unprintable title) and its broken heroes ("Long Before My Time" and "Gratitude (for Curt Flood)").

The album is full of jubilant musical moments and amusing turns of phrase, but it's no sing-a-long. The songs are dense, filled with more baseball lore than you can shake a maple bat at. The crowning achievement is Wynn's "Harvey Haddix," a lament sung about the Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher whose bid for a perfect game ended with a hit in the 13th inning.

Wynn manages to include the names of all 17 pitchers who've thrown perfect nine-inning games in baseball history and closes with the oft-asked question, "Why don't we add Harvey to that list?"

CHECK THIS OUT: Of all the topical songs on the album, "Gratitude (for Curt Flood)" hits the hardest (with "Broken Man" about the rise and fall of Mark McGwire a close second). Flood is the player who successfully fought the reserve clause, clearing the way for free agency and contracts worth $30 million a year. Flood never saw any of those riches. Wynn brings Flood back from the grave: "On the day that I died and they laid me in the ground where was everybody?/They couldn't be found/I'm gone and they don't know my name/no plaque, no speech, no hall of fame."