An Evening With
The Minus 5,
The Baseball Project
& the Steve Wynn IV
(performed by Peter Buck of REM , Scott McCaughey of Young Fresh Fellows, Steve Wynn & Linda Pitmon)

What happens when two great songwriters decide to focus their talents upon their favorite sport? You get the highly entertaining debut disc from The Baseball Project, Volume One: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails . The album is the brainchild of Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate, Steve Wynn and the Miracle 3) and Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows, Minus 5, and R.E.M). The two musicians were longtime fans of each other's work throughout the 80s but never met until the early 90s. Wynn recalls, "I honestly think the first time we met was side-by-side at the urinals at the Offramp in Seattle when I played there in 1992." He adds, "Scott didn't try to shake my hand."

After that fortuitous (and sanitary) meeting, the pair quickly discovered that they were both huge baseball fans. The two casually talked about an album of baseball material for a few years, but the idea for The Baseball Project crystallized at a chance meeting in 2007.

"It finally took flight at the R.E.M. pre-Hall of Fame induction party in New York," Wynn remembers. "Everyone was happy. The wine was flowing, the food was incredible and spring training had just started. Scott and I talked baseball until most of the party guests had cleared out. And we actually remembered it the next day."

Soon the pair started working on songs extolling the feats and defeats of players like Curt Flood, Satchel Paige, Ted Williams, and Black Jack McDowell, and convened last December at McCaughey's home in Portland. After a none-too-strenuous week of writing, refining, and rehearsing with Wynn's Miracle 3 drummer Linda Pitmon, they headed into Jackpot! Studios with producer/engineer Adam Selzer (M. Ward, Norfolk & Western), and were soon joined by longtime partner-in-crime Peter Buck.

The end result is an album that impresses not only with its depth of both widely known and obscure baseball lore, but with its melodic sensibility, walls of guitars, and catchy choruses.