The Baseball Project “Ted F---ing Williams”

I was watching a bit of the ALCS the other night . . . watching the Yankees pull away from the Angels, when that four letter word passed my lips. And it made me think of this song.

The Baseball Project practically constitutes a genre of its own---a band that writes song only about specific baseball players. Some of the musicians behind the project are probably familiar, including Peter Buck of R.E.M. and Scott McCaughey who plays in R.E.M.’s touring band and leads both The Young Fresh Fellows and The Minus Five.

Steve Wynn, the group leader, is a big baseball fan, and spearheaded the debut album, (which also spawned a follow-up EP), featuring songs about Fernando Valenzuela and the story of Chavez Ravine, Curt Flood and the rise of Free Agency and Mark McGuire’s testimony before Congress on steroid abuse in Major League Baseball.

But as a Red Sox devotee, I loved hearing their take on the oft-repeated legend that Ted Williams used to, while taking batting practice, yell out “I’M TED FUCKING WILLIAMS AND I’M THE GREATEST HITTER IN BASEBALL!!!”

Ted Williams was not the cuddly sort, and the song looks at baseball fandom from the perspective of someone who is perhaps the greatest, but not the most beloved. And he can’t understand why.

Hear a sample and buy the song:


Check out all the lyrics, and a little bit about each song on the album, then buy the album here.

See the band live, and on Letterman, here