New single “Oh Oh Ohtani!” to celebrate Shohei Ohtani’s incredible season and the start of Los Angeles Dodgers’ 2024 postseason.
The Baseball Project have added another track to their extensive catalog of baseball-inspired songs with “Oh Oh Ohtani,” an uplifting anthem celebrating Shohei Ohtani’s sensational season. The track follows the band’s latest album Grand Salami Time!, which was released in June, 2023.
“When we released our Shohei Ohtani song (‘New Oh In Town’ from Grand Salami Time!) I was placing him amongst historical great pitchers/sluggers, with Babe Ruth, and especially the all-time Japanese home run champion Sadaharu Oh,” Scott McCaughey explains. “But it seems now that we need to recognize him as the most singular diamond talent ever. And don’t even talk about anybody else as MVP—I don’t care if he’s a DH. The Dodgers without him this year would have been lost. So this, now, is ‘Oh Oh Ohtani!’—a song completely his own—and no doubt there are and will be many more.”
Made up of former R.E.M. members Peter Buck and Mike Mills, along with Scott McCaughey (Minus 5/Young Fresh Fellows), Steve Wynn (The Dream Syndicate) and Linda Pitmon (Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3, Filthy Friends), The Baseball Project’s Grand Salami Time! marked their first release in nine years. Produced by formative R.E.M. producer Mitch Easter (Let’s Active, The dB’s), Grand Salami Time! brought together former R.E.M. members in the studio again for the first time in over three decades. The new album was recorded at Easter’s fabled Fidelitorium Studios in Kernersville, North Carolina, with the entire band performing live together in the same room, a joyous experience that seemed impossible to imagine only one year before. Grand Salami Time! also features guitar work by Easter as well as appearances by Stephen McCarthy (The Long Ryders) and Steve Berlin (Los Lobos).
True to their name, The Baseball Project have been fortunate enough to perform full sets along with the National Anthem and “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” at major league parks in cities like Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia. They’ve also had the pleasure of throwing out some exceptional first pitches at these games. It’s all part of an unusual arc and fun story of a band whose first gig was an appearance on Late Night With David Letterman followed by a festival in a medieval Spanish city. For a quintet that has seemingly done everything over the years with their other bands, The Baseball Project always offers new and uncharted experiences, and Grand Salami Time! is no exception.
Oh Oh Ohtani!
