Song Of The Day 4/15/2016: The Baseball Project – “Ted Fucking Williams”

Baseball Week – This is arguably the greatest sports-centric rock band of all time. And yes, the Baseball Project actually have competition. One is a band that I'll be giving a special playlist to tomorrow to wrap this week up. The others include The Duckworth Lewis Method, who are Neil Hannon and Thomas Walsh singing about all things cricket. I had a personal thing for The Zambonis, who handled the hockey beat. There's also The Dead Schembechlers, an Ohio-State-loving college football band who are pretty impossible to resist unless you're from Michigan. (And now they get to go after Jim Harbaugh.)

I still give the edge to the Baseball Project, though, who are Seattle ombudsman Scott McCaughey, the Dream Syndicate's Steve Wynn and his wife Linda Pitmon, and R.E.M.'s Peter Buck. They take the historical approach on each of their three albums, a factor that really elevates them for me. They're like Ken Burns with better amps, tighter schedules and less pageboy haircuts. They also avoid homerism; within reason I think they're trying to produce something for all the teams in Major League Baseball. Not sure if they've gotten around to the Marlins yet, but nobody else has either. I could pick virtually any song from TBP to put up here, but Wynn's ode to the Boston Red Sox's greatest hitter and prickliest media interview has the most swagger, plus an attention-getting profanity right there in the title.