The Baseball Project brings together a veritable all-star team of indie rock veterans: R.E.M. members Peter Buck and Mike Mills, Minus 5/Young Fresh Fellows dude Scott McCaughey, the Dream Syndicate’s Steve Wynn, and Linda Pitmon, who plays in Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3 and Filthy Friends (Buck’s band with Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney). Their songs are, indeed, about baseball, and today they’ve got one about the best player alive.
“Oh Oh Ohtani” is dedicated to Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani. As someone who doesn’t really follow baseball anymore, I still have managed to catch wind of Ohtani’s baseball superpowers. He is both an ace pitcher and a powerhouse batter. Even though he took the year off pitching while he recovers from elbow surgery, he has put together a record-breaking season as a designated hitter, becoming the first player to ever record 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in the same season among other feats. He’s done so well that the world moved on from the weird offseason gambling scandal involving his former translator Ippei Mizuhara.
Here’s what McCaughey has to say about “Oh Oh Ohtani”:
When we released our Shohei Ohtani song [“New Oh In Town” from Grand Salami Time!] I was placing him amongst historical great pitchers/sluggers, with Babe Ruth, and especially the all-time Japanese home run champion Sadaharu Oh. But it seems now that we need to recognize him as the most singular diamond talent ever. And don’t even talk about anybody else as MVP — I don’t care if he’s a DH. The Dodgers without him this year would have been lost. So this, now, is “Oh Oh Ohtani!” — a song completely his own — and no doubt there are and will be many more.
Listen below.
In other Peter Buck news, he’s been down in Brazil playing shows with Barrett Martin and Nando Reis. His fellow R.E.M. alum Michael Stipe is appearing at a Harris/Walz campaign event alongside Jason Isbell tonight in Pittsburgh.
