Limited-range actor, surfer hack, Johnny-come-lately vegetarian and self-documented abortion enthusiast Eddie Vedder (née Mueller) has been ruining our national pastime’s favorite song for quite a few 7th innings now – ever since Yield ruined a whole 50 minutes of my life back in ‘98 actually. It’s bad enough the Cubbies haven’t won a World Series in 99 years. No fevered pitch fan would make Wrigley Fielders suffer through a bloated baritone belching of “Take Me Out To The Ball Game,” when all they really wanna do is stretch their legs and go grab another eight-dollar beer. Ehh? Well, now the Ticketmaster terror’s turned it up a tad.

The Friday before AT&T cut-off P. Jam’s A&V during their Lollapalooza headlining set (which would be okay if they did it for aesthetic reasons only), Vedder took the mound in Kerry Wood’s away game jersey to throw out the first pitch against my own post-season hopefuls the NY Mets. His form is decent for an aging grunge-ster, but if Ed wants to throw the heat anywhere near as fast as Clemens – who’s already two years older – he really needs to grab it at the laces. Even with all his other…ummh…distractions, even “Jeremy” would have chosen better footwear.

And while I haven’t been able to find out if ol’ mother love boner here even got it in the strike zone, I hate him all the same for giving birth to the low-end front man who, unable to hit anything above middle C, just bellows around in the F clef doldrums praying for his voice to crack. With a few exceptions, rock ‘n’ roll (or at least the kind a band like Pearl Jam is gonna play anyways) used to be about guys dressed as dolls sounding like girls. There was always an agreement, albeit a tacit one perhaps, that in order to get up in front of guitars, drums and a bass you had to have some kind of range. By lowering the tessitura The Eddie Vedder Singers inadvertently lowered the bar. Need proof? One word; three syllables: Nickelback.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot – the Mets won 6-2.