One of the tremendous things about the sport of baseball is its ability to inspire a sort of fanaticism that could result in a band like The Baseball Project - several big-shot musical pals who formed a side project act to write and play songs that are solely about American's pastime.

Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows), Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate), Linda Pitmon (Miracle 3) and Mike Mills (REM) are in fact The Baseball Project - a joyful entity that has resulted in three albums called "Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails," "Volume 2: High and Inside," and "The Broadside Ballads."

To see the band celebrate the Great Game in concert is the musical equivalent of having been behind the Red Sox dugout on October 20, 2004, when the New York Yankees completed the worst collapse in sports history.

This Tuesday, The Baseball Project returns New London's Hygienic Art Park and, in a brilliant thematic pairing, The Zambonis - a Bridgeport band whose tunes are exclusively about hockey - open the show.

- RICK KOSTER

The Baseball Project, 7 p.m. Tuesday, Hygienic Art Park, 79 Bank St., New London; with the Zambonis; $15; (860) 443-8001.