When Baseball Meets Pop Culture

UMFM is currently going under some major renos, and tonight the studio will be in the process of moving across the hall. This means of course that there will be no show tonight. Tomorrow I will be previewing some of the artists that I have been listening to a lot recently as a means to make up for this.

In the meantime, let's get ready for some post-season ball. For some reason, Baseball and and independent music seem to go hand in hand. Bob Pollard (who is a regular at Boston's Fenway Park) is currently working on the soundtrack for an upcoming documentary on Pete Rose. Stephen Malkmus is OBSESSED with fantasy baseball. Craig Finn has his Twins, while The John Darnielle and Eddie Vedder have their Cubbies. There's Yo La Tengo, who supposedly got their name from an inside joke running around the New York Mets locker room shortly after the whole Bill Buckner incident. And then there's local peggers like John K. Samson and Michael Petkau (not to mention local film director Guy Madden), who too are baseball nerds.

Needless to say, Baseball and pop music, for some weird reason, seem to go hand in hand. Here are some personal highlights of mine.

To start, it's not music. But who can resist Mr. T. "One, two, three strikes you out!" Classic.