No, Wait, <em>This</em> Is The Music Equivalent Of Fantasy Baseball

The folks at the LimeWire Blog have come up with a method for reviewing albums called “indie rock baseball,” in which you take a record and, starting off with two outs and no one on base, subsequently review said album based on how clutch it is–namely, if it can score a run before it strikes out with three skippable tracks. The rules follow:

* You start with two outs and no one on base. * Each time you skip to the next track without finishing the one you were listening to, that’s a strike. * Each time you finish a song, that’s a ball. * Each time you actually *like* a song, that’s a hit. Naturally. Or a single, if you prefer. This also resets the count (as would four balls). Now you would have a runner on. Another hit (or walk) would advance the runner, etc. * There are multi-base hits for songs you really like. It does help open things up, but please use sparingly, as we don’t want these things to end up being just another bunch of lopsided Yankee-Devil Ray games. * A runner scores from 2nd on a hit. I guess this would also imply a runner on 1st would score on a double. Use your best judgment. * Once a record reaches three strikes, it’s OUT. Of your CD player (or preferred music player). * Otherwise, you post the result (e.g. 1 run, 2 left on base).

But why stop at indie rock? Sure, the Yo La Tengo-Mets connection has even been commemorated on a shirt, but anyone who’s been to a game at Shea knows that there’s a fine tradition of marrying freestyle with crucial moments in baseball. In honor of that fact, I just played this game with Freestyle’s Greatest Beats, Vol. 1; the “score” wound up being 4-0 (with runners stranded on first and third) thanks to the unfortunate sequencing of a Sa-Fire song right after Jellybean’s “The Mexican.” (Seriously, though, that comp is all gold otherwise.) And I’m sure that other genres can play along as well. So I’m just going to completely throw open the door to mass nerdiness here and invite you all to play along below:

Indie Rock Baseball [LimeWire Blog, via On The Beat]