I feel bad for Steve Wynn. Not the casino mogul, but the musician.
Wynn led a band called Dream Syndicate in the 1980s and has carved out a nice solo career over the past two decades. My real familiarity with him comes from The Baseball Project, a recent endeavor with Peter Buck from R.E.M. and Scott McCaughey, who has served as R.E.M.’s side man for the past few albums and tours.
The group, has a bunch of fun baseball-themed songs covering topics such as steroids, the role of the closer, Ted Williams’ brashness and more. My personal favorite is “Harvey Haddix,” an ode to the pitcher who threw 12 perfect innings in 1959 only to lose the gem in the 13th inning. Major League Baseball does not classify this as a perfect game, taking it off the list in 1991.
The lyrics both recount the spectacular feat, urge for Haddix’s name to return to the list and tick off everyone who has thrown a perfect game in baseball’s modern era. The catalog of the 17 names on the list fascinated me. Then something happened last year. Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox added his name to the list, forcing Wynn and the band to slightly alter the song.
Three weeks ago, Dallas Braden of Oakland made himself the 19th player to accomplish the feat. Wynn had more work ahead of him, but pulled it off for this performance on May 22.
Then Roy Halladay went and screwed things up even more with a perfect game yesterday. Not only does Wynn have to add yet another name to “Harvey Haddix,” but the band released an ode to Halladay and the possibility of him winning 30 games this season. You can (safely) download the song here. Better do it before they have to do a new version of that too.
The band, which only plays together on occasion, had a set of dates over the weekend. I can’t wait to see if an even newer version hits YouTube soon.