Baseball Project hits a homer

Having driven four hours to see them last time, undertaking a one-hour jaunt to catch the Baseball Project was a no-brainer. That first show was so good, it still ranks among my favorite shows two years later.

Last night, the Baseball Project added another show to that list. Improbable as it may seem for someone who has only a passing interest in baseball (the fact that current coverage of my favorite team boasts headlines like “What has happened to the Dodgers?” doesn’t help), I love this band.

Most of that affection comes because of my being a big fan of its two principles: Steve Wynn and Scott McCaughey. I’ve been a fan of McCaughey’s longer, having picked up my first Young Fresh Fellows LP back in ’86, but I’ve become a huge fan of Wynn’s over the past decade. The two together, augmented by the stoic Peter Buck (playing bass in a busman’s holiday of sorts from his other band) and the comely Linda Pitmon (that’s Mrs. Wynn to you), are dynamite. These may be songs about baseball, but they are Wynn and McCaughey songs first, and the tunes found on the band’s two platters (three when you count the limited Broadside Ballads collection) are among the best work either has done.

Thursday night at the Rock Island Brewing Co. in Rock Island, Ill., the band faced a line-up change: Peter Buck was out (benched? on the DL?), and his R.E.M. compatriot Mike Mills was in. Casting no aspersions on Buck, one of my favorite musicians of the past 30 years, Mills more than held his own. Playing his natural instrument (while guitarist Buck is not) and contributing those trademark high harmonies (where Buck doesn’t sing a lick), he brought an added dimension to the sound. Couple that with the addition of a keyboard player this time out, and this was even more musically satisfying than the last time out.

The band stuck to its two officially released albums at the start, opening with “Past Time” from Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails. They also tore through “Ted Fucking Williams,” “Gratitude (For Curt Flood),” “Broken Man,” “Jackie’s Lament,” and “Harvey Haddix” from that first album. The second album, High and Inside, yielded “1976,” “Panda and the Freak,” “Fair Weather Fans” (with a new verse from Mills to sub for Buck’s deadpan shout-out to the Washington Senators), “Don’t Call Them Twinkies,” “Chin Music,” “Ichiro Goes to the Moon” and “The Straw That Stirs the Drink.”

McCaughey only fronted one non-Baseball Project song, ripping through the Minus 5 romp “Aw Shit, Man!” Two, if you count the impromptu cover of Johnny Cash’s “I Still Miss Someone” that came between the set and the encore (“I’m not going off stage,” McCaughey said. “It’s too much work.”). Wynn, in contrast, had a lot more mic time, doing the Dream Syndicate classics “That’s What You Always Say” and “Days of Wine and Roses,” as well as his solo track “Amphetamine.”

The best crowd response, however, came for the millionaire among us. Mills opened the encore with a spirited version of R.E.M.’s “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville.” The band seemed to be having a lot of fun on the classic, and it was fun to see Mills play the song in the kind of clubs his band left behind a long time ago.

The band stuck around after the show to chat and sign things, and we had long discussions about music, baseball and the incredible response to the band. McCaughey engaged in some analysis of the band members’ first-pitch performance at a number of major and minor league ballgames, and marveled at the spread afforded the band in a luxury suite at three consecutive Milwaukee Brewers games. They’re among the nicest people in rock, and deserve whatever success — or meat and cheese trays — that brings.