Play Ball!

You don’t have to be a big baseball fan to be excited about the upcoming sound-track album to “Bull Durham,” the film starring Kevin Costner that opens July 19. But it would probably help. Especially since the album is a rock rotisserie-league fan’s delight, including such pop sandlot epics as “Centerfield” by John Fogerty and “Love Ain’t No Triple Play,” performed by Bonnie Raitt with Dr. John and Bennie Wallace. Due out in mid-July, the album is slated to include “Born to Be Bad” by (baseball fan) George Thorogood, “A Woman Loves a Man” by Joe Cocker (the first single), “All Night Dance” by Stevie Ray Vaughn with Dr. John and Bennie Wallace, “Can’t Tear It Up Enuff” by the Fabulous Thunderbirds, I Got Loaded” by Los Lobos, “So Long Baby Goodbye” by the Blasters and “You Done Me Wrong” by Pat McLaughlin. . . . Speed-metal monsters Metallica are back together with Flemming Rasmussen, who produced the band’s classic “Master of Puppets” album. The group’s upcoming record, due as early as August, is currently titled “ . . . And Justice for All,” and features such new tunes as “Harvester of Sorrows,” “Frayed Ends of Sanity,” “The Shortest Straw” and an instrumental, “To Live Is to Die.” . . . And yes--that was Metallica last Monday and Tuesday night at the Troubadour. Billed as Frayed Ends, the band played a pair of 90-minute sets, previewing some of its new material to an overflow crowd (and tons of security personnel) and no doubt tuning up for the Monsters of Rock tour, which opened this weekend in Wisconsin.