In 2011, the band R.E.M. broke up, ending a musical legacy that lasted 31 years and produced 15 albums. No one expected them to get back together. But they have . . . just without singer Michael Stipe. And they owe it all to baseball. Bassist Mike Mills and guitarist Peter Buck have reunited in the Baseball Project, with fellow musicians Steve Wynn (formerly of the Dream Syndicate), Scott McCaughey (who has played with Young Fresh Fellows, the Minus 5 and, yes, R.E.M.) and Linda Pitmon.
True to its name, the Baseball Project plays songs exclusively about America’s national pastime.
The band, whose third album, “3rd,” drops on Tuesday, formed in 2007 when Wynn met McCaughey at a party for R.E.M.’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The long drunken night that followed revealed a shared love of baseball and a dream they separately harbored of forming a band dedicated to the sport.
“Within a handful of days we were sending each other three songs a day,” says Wynn, a childhood Dodgers fan who’s come to love the Yankees.
“[McCaughey] wanted to write about his favorite player, Willie Mays. I wanted to write about Sandy Koufax,” he explains. “One of my favorite subjects in the history of baseball is the story of Harvey Haddix, who threw a 12-inning perfect game and lost in the 13th.”
Wynn and McCaughey recruited Pitmon, Wynn’s drummer and wife, and mutual old friend Buck on guitar. Mills officially joined just before the recording of the new album.
Despite its R.E.M. pedigree, the absence of singer Michael Stipe gives the music a grittier veneer. (Stipe has seen the band play, but he’s more focused on photography and sculpture than music, says Mills, leaving the odds of a collaboration low.)
Songs on the new record include “From Nails to Thumbtacks,” which tells the tale of Mets-hero-turned-convict Lenny Dykstra with lines like, “I lived in a mansion/I lived in a car/You gotta fly high to fall this far.” There’s also “The Day Dock Went Hunting Heads,” about the infamous no-hitter Pittsburgh Pirate Dock Ellis threw in 1970 while, he claims, tripping on LSD. And “13” is a ripping denouncement of Yankee #13 Alex Rodriguez that includes the lyrics, “It might have helped if you showed remorse/But you don’t know what that means/Contrition is for losers, until you lose it all, unlucky like 13.”
The Baseball Project gives its members a chance to advocate as well. For the new album, Mills wrote “To the Veterans Committee,” a plea to the Baseball Hall of Fame to elect the former Atlanta Braves All-Star Dale Murphy. (If a player fails to win election for 15 straight years, as Murphy did, he’s removed from the regular ballot, and can then only be elected by a special committee.)
“For seven or eight years, he was the best outfielder in baseball. He won two MVP awards and five Golden Gloves,” Mills says. “People say his career wasn’t long enough, but I say that was plenty long.”
As his passion indicates, Mills shares Wynn and McCaughey’s longtime love of the game. (Only Buck, a casual fan, is not a baseball die-hard. Wynn and McCaughey participate in a fantasy league with members of Pavement, Los Lobos and Yo La Tengo.)
“My dad took me to an old Atlanta Crackers [minor league] game before the Braves came to town. Then we started going as soon as [the Braves] moved to Atlanta,” says Mills, who remembers Braves star Hank Aaron hitting home runs. “He would take me several times a year, and I’ve had season tickets since ’91.”
Wynn says they don’t hear from many current players, but they have thrown out first pitches and sang the National Anthem at Fenway and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” at a Phillies game.
Wynn adds he has never been as nervous as he was throwing out the first pitch at a sold-out Cubs game.
“It was wild. I practiced for that pitch for about a month,” he says. “I was not gonna bounce it. And I threw kind of a strike — if the hitter was 7-foot-2!”
The Baseball Project will tour this summer, hoping to catch games along the way. The band’s members see baseball as a creative well.
“There is an infinite goldmine of stories,” says Mills. “Because there are so many humans involved, it reflects life. A lot of our songs have statistics in them, but a lot are about life and the bigger picture.”