The Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance

Thinking about Andy Marte's average, I got to thinking about the number of bands with baseball-related album and song titles and lyrics.

There's (obviously when it comes to Marte) my friend's former band, "The Mendoza Line" (honestly, even without the personal connection, one of my favorite band names ever). They broke up, but they were really, really good.

There was a decent early-2000s band -- who apparently is still slogging it out -- from Detroit named "Koufax" - another great name.

There's an album by the band "Slide" titled "Forgiving Buckner". Though this is also the name of a poem. Boston fans, meet pretentiousness. Pretentiousness, Boston fans.

There's Simon and Garfunkle with the whole "Mrs. Robinson" thing mentioning Joe DiMaggio, as in "where did you go...?"

Bobby Dylan at his most Dylan-ish asked, "What I wanna know. mister football man, is what do you do about — Willie Mays?" in "I Shall Be Free" off of "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" -- if you don't own it, you should.

That's just off the top of my head...any others?

The obvious one is John Fogerty's Centerfield. Also Springsteen's Glory Days (1st verse). I'm sure there are many others as well.

How about Don Henley's "Boys of Summer"?

There's always the old 80s band The Outfield.

The Joe Pernice (formerly of The Pernice Brothers and Scud Mountain Boys, and if you at all dig alt-country, you'll dig all incarnations... check them out), a hardcore red sox fan came out with "Moonshot Manny" in 2008.

A little too much like hearing him sing a love song to an ex-girlfriend (I loved him first and loved him more damnit!) -- and what's with Boston fans and pretension? -- but pretty cool nonetheless.

Chuck Berry's "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man":
"Two, three count with nobody on
He hit a high fly into the stand
Rounding third he was headed for home
It was a brown eyed handsome man
That won the game; it was a brown eyed handsome man."

Meatloaf's "Paradise By the Dashboard Lights" with a cameo from my childhood favorite announcer Phil Rizzuto!

Akira wrote:Meatloaf's "Paradise By the Dashboard Lights" with a cameo from my childhood favorite announcer Phil Rizzuto!

You Huckleberry!

Alabama's Cheap Seats

Mark Chestnutt's Too Cold at Home. The related baseball lyrics are:

Well that baseball game on TV Takes me back to when I was a kid
We proudly wore those uniforms Just like the Dodgers did
Yea we won a few games and lost a few