"The Baseball Project" CD

I just came across a music CD called "The Baseball Project Volume 1: Frozen Ropes And Dying Quails." It actually came out last summer, but there doesn't seem to have been any mention of it here. Officially the group itself is also called The Baseball Project, but it's really more like the latest incarnation of The Minus 5. There are 13 songs, most of which are about different individual players, although there's also a song about closers generally and one about baseball nostalgia generally. I bring it up because two of the songs are about former Cardinals - "Gratitude (for Curt Flood)" and "Broken Man," about Mark McGwire.

There are also songs about Ted Williams (or "Ted Fucking Williams," as the song is called), Satchel Paige, Fernando Valenzuela, Sandy Koufax, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays (kind of - the song is more about the singer remembering a game he went to with his dad, which the Giants won on a HR by Mays), Ed Delahanty (I had to look up who the hell he was), Harvey Haddix, and Jack McDowell.

Here's the link to the Yep Roc Records page for the album, and here's a link to all of the lyrics for the album.

If you're familiar with The Minus 5 the overall sound of this album will also be fairly familiar to you. It may be my own bias showing through, but I think the two Cardinal songs are among the best ones, especially the Mark McGwire song. The Koufax and Robinson songs are also pretty good; the Mays song not so much. I'm a pretty big fan of The Minus 5, but on first listen I don't think this is one of their better albums. But maybe it'll grow on me, and anyway it's pretty entertaining to have an entire rock album dedicated to baseball, including a song about how Curt Flood doesn't get enough respect.

A quick sampling of the Cards song lyrics (these are both partial):

"Gratitude (for Curt Flood)"
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..
A-Rod, Zito, Posada, Tejada, Johan, Manny, Maddux, Mussina.
Who’s the one who paved the way with blood?
Go say my name—it’s (Flood!) Curt Flood!

You call that gratitude?"

***

"Broken Man"
We all need to gain the upper hand.
An edge to do even better than we can.
No one seemed to care when it brought back the fans.
It’s a broken record, strike up the band for the broken man.

A crowd so loud and a son so very proud.
The powers that be counting money, handing me a crown.
Only now they decide that it’s time to take a stand.
It’s a broken record, strike up the band for the broken man.