Record Review: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails

Fresh Baked:
The Baseball Project
Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails
2008 | Yep Roc
B+

There are few things I love more than baseball and music. I love both for many of the same reasons; to paraphrase the great Tim Kurkjian, every day there is the ability to see something that you have never seen before and will never see again in every single baseball game; in a similar way, every new record has the opportunity to change the world the way that “Love Me Do,” or “Smells Like Teen Spirit” did. Both are full of flashes in the pan who impress one day and bore the next, but there is also that illusive player or band every few years that is a great surprise and continues to delight for years to come.

However, besides for a few, mostly cheesy, songs, or the occasional reference here or there, rock and roll has steered clear of baseball as source material. It is not hard to see why - in the wrong hands, baseball songs could become easy hero worship and cheerleading. But is it really much cheesier than yet another sappy love song? Or another anti-establishment anthem? Is potential cliché on its own cause enough to shun an entire profession from being rarely written about? Yet despite not writing about it, such luminaries as Jeff Tweedy, Stephen Malkmus, Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo (whose band name is a baseball reference!) and Craig Finn of the Hold Steady are self-professed fans of the game.

So it was only a matter of time before someone decided to try their hand at a legitimate rock and roll record about baseball. The Dream Syndicate’s Steve Wynn and the Young Fresh Fellows/Minus 5’s Scott McCaughey started The Baseball Project for just that reason. For a baseball nerd like me, this is manna from heaven.  However, and this is the big question, can a non-baseball fan enjoy this album?

The answer to this question is two-fold, but in many cases, yes. These two songwriters are quite adept at churning out catchy power-pop songs in their sleep, so it is not a surprise that the songs, at least musically, are top notch. Many of these songs, most especially “Ted Fucking Williams” would not have been out of place on a Dream Syndicate or Minus 5 record. Because these guys have such a standard repertoire, it is nice to see them stretch a little - “Fernando” is a Spanish language ode to Fernando Valenzuela, the former Los Angeles Dodger pitcher, and is a fun diversion. Songs like this and “The Death of Big Ed Delahanty” are ostensibly folk songs, like those about John Henry or Quinn the Eskimo, that would not necessarily turn off someone who has little or no interest in baseball. On the other hand, “Harvey Haddix” and “Gratitude (For Curt Flood)” are dense tomes on specific issues (the perfect game and free agency, respectively) that name-check many players and suffer a bit from the “We Didn’t Start the Fire”/”It’s The End of the World as we Know It (And I Feel Fine)” syndrome of list-songs. However, even on some of the more cumbersome lyrical songs, the record impresses because they take stances, they tell stories and, most importantly, are not simply rah rah anthems. “Past Time” wonders if baseball is past its prime; “Broken Man,” perhaps the best song on the record, is a really insightful look at the steroid scandal and the hypocrisies therein (specifically focusing on Mark McGuire). There are only a few moments that feel a bit starry-eyed; “Sometimes I Dream of Willie Mays” borders on hero worship, and the song that most mythologizes the game is the last song of the album, which could have only been called “The Closer.” But even on the most austere moments found here, you can tell that these songs come from a place of true joy and admiration - and that sincerity, to a certain degree, makes up for some of the weaker spots.

So, if you’ve never heard of Moneyball or kept score during a game, is this record for you? I don’t know for sure - try as I may, I can’t completely extricate the baseball fan from the objective listener. But I do know that I would be disappointed if an album subtitled “Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails” was only indirectly about baseball. I applaud these guys for taking a chance at making something they’ve probably always wanted to own themselves, and in doing so have made hundreds, if not thousands, of frustrated fantasy owners, bleacher creatures and indie rock aficionados a little happier.

by Brian Salvatore

http://www.myspace.com/thebaseballproject