So why not a whole album of songs inspired by the national pastime? That's the concept behind Volume 1: Frozen Ropes & Dying Quails, the 2008 disc credited to The Baseball Project. The collaboration teams up veteran clutch-hitters Scott McCaughey, the leader of the Minus 5 and Young Fresh Fellows (and also a prized utility player for R.E.M.), and Steve Wynn, the Dream Syndicate founder who has had a two-decade solo career as a hardboiled Raymond Chandler of rock, combining influences from the Velvet Underground and the Rolling Stones.

On Tuesday, Wynn and McCaughey (pronounced McCoy) came to World Cafe Live along with Wynn's wife, drummer Linda Pitmon, and McCaughey's R.E.M. compadre Peter Buck to play a rich and riveting rock show that stretched over two sets and 21/2 hours.

With Buck mostly playing bass, Wynn and McCaughey took turns singing lead and playing lead guitar, pulling from each of their songbooks and making their way through most of the winning Baseball Project album.

The Baseball Project songs are all done in good fun and are like a fantasy come to life for fanboys obsessed equally with baseball and indie rock. Catchy, intelligent, power-pop songs about Curt Flood (the St. Louis Cardinals outfielder who ushered in the free-agent era when he refused a 1969 trade to the Phillies) and Harvey Haddix (the Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher who threw 12 perfect innings in 1959, only to lose the game in the 13th). How awesomely geeky is that?

Pretty awesomely geeky, but - because both McCaughey and Wynn are shrewd and funny songwriters - more than merely that. "Harvey Haddix" turns out to be about the pitfalls of searching for perfection ("It drives you nuts, it makes you curse, it eats away your soul"). "Long Before My Time" about the great Sandy Koufax's early retirement at age 30, slyly works Samuel Beckett into a tuneful verse ("I must go on, I can't go on"). And "Sometimes I Dream of Willie Mays" captures the painful feeling of witnessing the failings of childhood heroes, who grow all too human as their skills fade with the passage of time.

At World Cafe, the quartet delivered all those baseball songs and more, including "The Closer," dedicated to Phillies pitcher Brad Lidge ("You think this pressure is easy? You're just kidding yourself"). Anchored by Pitmon's powerhouse timekeeping and Buck's unobtrusive bass, Wynn and McCaughey took the opportunity to find common threads in their own work. The Minus 5's "Days of Wine and Booze" was followed by the Dream Syndicate's "Days of Wine and Roses." And with a particularly ripping solo, McCaughey turned on the fastball of Wynn's amped-up, life-affirming song "Amphetamine" and hit it out of the park.