Indie rock and baseball

Had hoped to post more this month -- I've had a post on what the Dodgers' deadline moves mean for the pitching staff for the rest of the season floating around my head for the past week -- but you know how it goes in the world of blogging. Personal life always gets in the way. Rough week. Anyway, this is what folks in the "industry" like to call "filler" -- a little stop-gap post to keep the juices flowing until I can sit down and get, like, thoughtful and shit.

Since I've spent the past week doing nothing but listening to CDs (it's a job and a lifestyle, I guess), I've been thinking a lot about a 7" record I picked up in college by Barbara Manning called The Baseball Trilogy. I think it's out of print at the moment, which is a pity. Manning is a huge baseball fan: the cover of her record One Perfect Green Blanket depicts and refers to a baseball diamond and Manning named her longtime band SF Seals in honor of Joltin' Joe DiMaggios very first pro team. The Baseball Trilogy, in particular, is a real treat: I have a soft spot for it because she devotes one of the songs to my favorite ball player of all time.

Just got word from my "sources" that noted crank Steve Albini (the guy that produced, er, recorded Nirvana and the Pixies and...everything) TiVos "Baseball Tonight" while he's in the studio and watches it obsessively. That didn't surprise me too much, when I recalled the Albini's band Shellac did a baseball-themed tour in support of their 1994 record At Action Park. This one got me, though: Gerard Cosloy, proprietor of Matador Records, has been working incognito on a sports blog with a heavy baseball emphasis. Interesting in hearing what the guy who signed Liz Phair and Pavement and Cat Power has to say about Steve Kline or the latest foibles of the Mets? You betcha.