The indie giant Merge Records is a hometown institution in Durham, North Carolina, and it’s maintained ties with another hometown institution: The Durham Bulls, the local Triple-A baseball team. When SPIN’s David Bevan wrote his great profile of the label last year, much of it took place at a Merge-themed night at the local stadium. And last night, as part of Merge’s 25th anniversary celebrations, the label again took over the ballpark. As SPIN reports, all the players walked to the plate last night to songs from Merge releases (see below), Mount Moriah’s Heather McEntire sang the national anthem, and label co-founder and Superchunk frontman Mac McCaughan threw out the first pitch, tweeting afterwards, “Bounced it… Looks like I’m not getting called up after all.”