In the wake of this year's All-Star Game, today is a baseball dead zone. It's the last day of the all-star break, with no major-league games scheduled until Thursday. And if Tuesday night's 15-inning marathon wasn't enough and you're jonesing for something to get through the day, you could do a lot worse than The Baseball Project's "Vol 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails" (Yep Roc Records).

R.E.M. sideman Scott McCaughey and former Dream Syndicate leader Steve Wynn are TBP's ringleaders, and they're both key figures in the '80s-college-radio generation -- not to mention major baseball fans. Years ago, I interviewed Wynn and we spent quite a bit of time talking about how he'd been on tour in Europe during the 1988 World Series, desperately trying to tune in his beloved Dodgers on overseas radio.

The 13 tracks on "Frozen Ropes" are agreeable power-pop, although the tunes take a few listens to sink in. But sink in they do, especially since the lyrical subject matter is a delight. It's worth tracking down a physical copy of the album to get the liner notes, which offer detailed explanations of each song. Featuring odes to shamed slugger Mark McGwire, Ted [Expletive] Williams and the unluckiest pitcher ever, it's like a baseball-card collection set to song.

Check out the project's MySpace to hear a couple of songs, and to see video of a recent performance on Letterman.

ADDENDUM (8/12/08): Todd Snider's "Dock Ellis." 

Clay Council served up home run after home run to Josh Hamilton in Monday night's Home Run Derby at Yankee Stadium — a mind-boggling 28 in the first round, 35 in all. Though Hamilton didn't win the contest, he and Council, the 71-year-old Cary resident/BP pitcher extraordinaire, stole the show.

Hamilton deservedly garnered much of the attention, but Council got some, too, from the New York Post and the New York Daily News.

Clay Council served up home run after home run to Josh Hamilton in Monday night's Home Run Derby at Yankee Stadium — a mind-boggling 28 in the first round, 35 in all. Though Hamilton didn't win the contest, he and Council, the 71-year-old Cary resident/BP pitcher extraordinaire, stole the show.

Hamilton deservedly garnered much of the attention, but Council got some, too, from the New York Post and the New York Daily News.

As a teenager, Josh Hamilton used to kid Clay Council that when he
became a Major League baseball player and entered the Home Run Derby he
would have Council be his pitcher in the contest.

It turns out Hamilton wasn't joking at all.

When Hamilton digs in for the Home Run Derby at Yankee Stadium on Monday night, Council will be on the mound pitching to him.

"What
a thrill that'll be," the 71-year-old Council said by phone from his
Cary home. "I never thought it'd materialize. It was just a
conversation piece."

North Carolina baseball coach Mike Fox, who led the Tar Heels to their third straight trip to the College World Series earlier this month, is Baseball America's National Coach of the Year.

Fox is the first UNC baseball coach to receive national honors, according a news release from the school. The Tar Heels finished 54-14 this season, and eventual national champion Fresno State ousted Carolina from the CWS.

UNC has won 11 CWS games over the last three years; Fox is one of only six men to play in Omaha (with the Tar Heels' 1978 team), then coach there.

One doesn't think of ethereal-voiced goddess Emmylou Harris as a sports enthusiast. But she is -- the 2001 concert movie "Down From the Mountain"
outed Harris as an obsessive baseball fan who carries around a pager to
send her up-to-the-minute scores. Harris would like nothing better than
to catch a Durham Bulls game while she's in town this week to sing at the NC Museum of Art. She won't have time for that, but she's going to plenty of other games on this tour.

"I've already been to Yankee Stadium, plus games in Toronto, San
Francisco and Washington," she said during a recent phone interview
from New York City. "It just depends on when we have a day off that's
not a travel day. I'm a Braves fan, which has been a little frustrating the past few years. But that's part of baseball."

Harris has never played baseball herself, except for the occasional
game of wiffleball with her kids: "I was not very athletic in school. I
was more into going off into the woods and trekking around, so I was a
bit of a tomboy that way. But team sports, I was not into. I had one
daughter who was an amazing volleyball player, so I drove the team
around during junior high and high school. I applaud sports for women
and regret not getting into them."

For more, see the rest of the interview
from this past Friday's paper; or click through to see an interview
with Harris from 2004, discussing a range of stuff including long-ago
college days in North Carolina. Her Wednesday night show in Raleigh is,
alas, already soldout.

Hear Miles Wolff talk about the possibility of a major league team baseball team in the Triangle.