Last night, I went to Zephyr Field, and if you think about what you’re watching, it’s easy to get romantic about baseball. Catching for the Z’s was Raul Casanova, a 35-year-old who has played at the major league level six times and is looking for a seventh. At his age, you have to figure this is probably his last chance; in a year, it’ll be hard to imagine anybody wanting 36-year-old knees crouching behind the plate. Also in the game was the brilliantly named Valentino Pascucci, an outfielder who shows better power than the Z’s have typically had, but name aside, you get the feeling that if you shake a Triple-A tree, right fielders with his power will fall out. Go up and down the lineup and you find guys playing for their dreams, most of which will end unfulfilled.

Baseball has always loaned itself to that sort of melancholy musing—perhaps it’s literally the space between people on the field. Everybody looks lonely, small and put on the spot on the baseball diamond. That view from the cheap seats and the barstool fuels The Baseball Project’s Vol. 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails. Steve Wynn and the Minus 5’s Scott McCaughey wrote the album, which is performed by Wynn, drummer Linda Pitmon, Peter Buck and McCaughey. On it, they champion the underdog—Harvey Haddix, Curt Flood—rip the celebrated—“Ted Fucking Williams”—and humanize the guys behind the stats. Only the opener, “Past Time” feels easy, and even if the album is nothing more than friends getting together to make some songs and share their love of the game and its lore, it’s a smart, well-crafted take on how we interact with history.