The Baseball Project, Loose Cattle and more on Mountain Stage

*Available to Mountain Stage Members starting Friday, March 28 10a.m. ET
*Public on Sale Friday, April 4 at 10a.m. ET

All tickets to this show are e-tickets and will be emailed to you upon purchase. Open up the pdf and the QR code on your ticket will be scanned at the door. This event will also be offered as a livestream.

Mountain Stage livestreams are free, however, there are some incredible folks out there who’d like to show their support through a donation-based, pay-what-you-want “ticket” for the livestream. This is a donation-based “ticket” to show some love for the program and is not a ticket to the live event.

You’ll be able to catch the show from the comfort of your home (or wherever you wish) Sunday, September 28, 2025 – at 7 PM ET at mountainstage.org.

Click here to learn more about Mountain Stage and the live show experience!

The Baseball Project are 5 friends who are veterans of the Alternative / Indie Rock scene (and who in fact helped create it), starting in the early 80’s. The band features members of R.E.M., The Dream Syndicate, The Minus 5, Young Fresh Fellows and Filthy Friends. These are just a FEW of the countless bands that Scott McCaughey, Steve Wynn, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Linda Pitmon perform in.

They come together in this “supergroup” to focus on the fascinating stories that baseball spawns - character studies of both the heroic and the oddball variety. You don’t need to be a student of the game to dig them though - often times baseball is just a jumping off point for deeper stories of triumph or failure….or hilarity – all while playing their infectious and rockin’ brand of power pop/ jangle folk / Indie Rock that they do so well!

The Baseball Project formed in 2007 when all 5 band members were attending a party for R.E.M.’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Steve and Linda were there as guests of Peter Buck but were only passing acquaintances of Scott, who was a touring member of R.E.M. At some point in the very wee hours of the party, McCaughey and Wynn found themselves leaning against the same bar and struck up a raucous conversation that ricocheted from music talk to baseball. They both confessed a longstanding and hitherto unrequited desire to write and record an entire album of songs that would dig deeper into the game and the psyche of the more eccentric characters that have played it. Linda (drummer in Steve’s band, The Miracle 3) wandered past and heard the promises being made to “maybe one day try to do it”. Being a huge baseball fan herself, she threw down a challenge to the pair to finally do it. They immediately set about writing and sharing tracks long distance (Steve and Linda live in NYC and Scott is in Portland, OR). Within a few weeks the trio of baseball fanatics with killer record collections had booked studio time at Jackpot Studios in Portland. After a couple of short writing and acoustic rehearsal sessions in Scott’s living room (Linda played a peach crate), they commenced recording and in 4 short days completed the 13 tracks that would soon become their first release, “Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails”.

The songs came together quickly but they were looking for some fairy dust, so Scott decided to call on brilliant R.E.M. buddy Peter Buck to contribute his famed 12-string sound. Despite being sick as a dog, he braved his 103-degree temperature and came down with Rickenbacker in hand (plus sitar, mandolin, etc.) and laid down tracks on all 13 songs in just over an hour. Little did he know that he’d just been indoctrinated into the band for life, even though the only baseball player he knew was Boog Powell!

The subject matter covered plenty of the game’s legends (Babe Ruth and Ted Williams, for example) but also players and stories that have been obscured by time, like Big Ed Delahanty. He was a massive star in the late 1800’s but he was apparently kicked off a train at midnight for being drunk and disorderly…and brandishing a straight razor! He mysteriously went over the International Bridge and was found a week later at the bottom of Niagara Falls. THESE are the stories that really fuel the Baseball Project!

It was obvious the band were onto something when they were invited to play Late Night With David Letterman 6 months later -- before their first record, Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails was even released in July of 2008! They followed up that auspicious first “gig” by playing their first full set the next month at a festival in a medieval city in the north of Spain (sure, why NOT?!). Peter wasn’t available to make the trip so Scott had the genius idea to ask R.E.M.’s masterful bass player, Mike Mills, to fill in. As an equally avid fan of the game he was a natural and after years of alternating on bass guitar duties, they eventually both joined as permanent members with Peter moving over to guitar duties.

Since those early days of showing up at Spring Training games in Arizona and Florida to play in parking lots for people trickling into the games, the band now appears IN MLB stadiums – including performances at Major League parks in Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, Denver, Minneapolis, Philadelphia as well as having thrown out some exceptional first pitches (nothing but strikes!)

Over the years the group has released almost 100 original songs and has recorded with Craig Finn (The Hold Steady), Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie), Ira Kaplan (Yo La Tengo) and Chris Funk and John Moen (The Decemberists), among others, and performed a three-day residency at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, The Baseball Hall of Fame (Cooperstown), the National SABR Convention, Peter Gammons’ Hot Stove Benefit Event, the Chicago Cubs Fanfest and more.

The Baseball Project’s latest album, “Grand Salami Time” was recorded and co-produced by the band and Mitch Easter (who produced R.E.M.’s earliest records) at Easter’s fabled Fidelitorium Studios and includes contributions from Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) and Stephen McCarthy (The Long Ryders).

“A soundtrack for the season…The group mines nostalgia and esoterica to find fresh subject matter for 16 songs…most topics are paired with garage rock that gives Buck a chance to serve up some delightful guitar squall.”

—Associated Press

“A joyful and jubilant example of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s power pop…It makes for a celebratory sound that ricochets throughout. There’s an unceasing exuberance and enjoyment emitted from these grooves as if that near-decade spent in hibernation created pent-up agitation that was waiting to be unleashed at the earliest opportunity.”—American Songwriter

“Grand Salami Time is the fourth album from the Baseball Project, and it’s every bit as fun, engaging, and tuneful as their debut; these folks have shown they can go back to the well and not come up dry…It doesn’t hurt that Wynn, McCaughey, and Buck are all first-rate tunesmiths who are good with the music as well as the words, and the blend of their guitars is satisfying throughout. They also have a top-shelf rhythm section in bassist Mike Mills (Buck’s former R.E.M. bandmate) and drummer Linda Pitmon.”—AllMusic

“You don't have to be a baseball nerd to enjoy these songs about journeymen players, doctored baseballs, and cinderella stories. Music nerds will find stuff to love, too.”—Brooklyn Vegan

Someone’s Monster, the new album from Loose Cattle produced by John Agnello, finds the band moving decisively on from their earlier countryfied reexaminations of other writers’ songs and taking on powerful new identities as songwriters, becoming a band with a broad sonic pallet wrapped around an urgently questioning core. Formed by co bandleaders Michael Cerveris and Kimberly Kaye, Loose Cattle has been part of New Orleans’ uniquely diverse and eclectic Americana roots music scene for over a decade. Its members individually bring rich and varied musical pedigrees to the band, having played with everyone from Alex Chilton and The Iguanas to Bob Mould and Pete Townshend, meanwhile collecting a Grammy, multiple Tony Awards, and a host of local music honors. Their 2017 holiday album, Seasonal Affective Disorder, appeared on numerous best-of lists, including Rolling Stone Country’s 10 New Country And Americana Christmas Songs To Hear Right Now, with No Depression declaring “This might be the best album of the season.” Appearances at New Orleans Jazz Fest and French Quarter Fest and repeat visits to NPR’s Mountain Stage and Lincoln Center’s American Songbook have garnered them fans and friends like Lucinda Williams, members of Drive By Truckers and the Grammy winning Lost Bayou Ramblers, all of whom guest on their upcoming debut on the famed Single Lock Records label, based in Muscle Shoals.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Culture Center Theater, 1900 Kanawha Blvd E, Charleston , WV, United States