NATHAN WEINBENDER:
An eephus is a type of baseball pitch that comes on slow. It seems to hang in the air, defying the laws of physics, disorienting the batter so that they either swing way too early or too late. A new shaggy, low-budget comedy, also called Eephus, has that same uncanny sense of time, and if you’re on its unusual trajectory, it’s quite a wonderful thing.
The film is set over the course of a single autumn afternoon, sometime in the 1990s, on a baseball field in Massachusetts. Two beer league teams have gathered for the last game of their season—and the last game that will ever be played on this particular field before it’s demolished to make room for a new middle school.
We observe the pre-game rituals and the settling of the batting order. Some of these guys are still young and spry. Others are middle-aged and tired. There are all the typical grievances and annoyances. One guy hasn’t showed up yet, and the team might have to forfeit. The umpire has to leave early. Another player has brought a box of cheap fireworks to set off after the game, but no one else is all that excited.
The movie gives us a couple dozen characters, and we only get hints of backstories, tensions, rivalries, dashed dreams and misplaced ambition. There’s Frannie, the guy who dutifully keeps score for every game—but to whose benefit? The old timer who’s the only spectator in the bleachers. The guy whose wife and kids show up to watch him play, only for him to strike out every time he’s at bat.
There’s a veteran pitcher (played by former Red Sox Bill “Spaceman” Lee) who seems to appear out of the woods, and then disappears again, and a player who gets pulled from the game by his brother because he double booked with his niece’s christening (they’re played by Keith William Richards and Wayne Diamond of Uncut Gems).
The day goes on, and the innings stretch on and on. They’re running out of balls because fouls keep getting knocked into the nearby woods. The sun is going down, there are no lights on the field, and it’s getting harder to see whether pitches are balls or strikes. But they have to finish this game, and we begin to wonder what will happen to these guys when it’s over. Will they join another team, or find another place to play? Is it even worth the hassle? Will they see each other again? Do they consider themselves friends?
Eephus is the feature directorial debut of Carson Lund, who’s in his early 30s but has filled his characters with a bone-deep sense of ennui that’s typical of older, wiser filmmakers. This owes an obvious debt to the films of Richard Linklater, especially his period hangout ensembles Dazed and Confused and Everybody Wants Some!! Like those films, Eephus is full of idle small talk and, occasionally, accidental wisdom.
I’ve done my best to describe the film’s particular feeling and pacing, but I don’t know how to do it justice. It has that vaguely magical, even somewhat menacing touch that is typical of so much baseball lore, with its dugouts haunted by baseball legends of the past (or maybe they’re merely legends in their own minds). It has some big laughs in it, but mostly pangs of sadness, and that feeling of not wanting something to end—not because it’s particularly meaningful, but because now you have to find something else to do with your life.
For Spokane Public Radio, I'm Nathan Weinbender.
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Nathan Weinbender is a co-host of Spokane Public Radio’s Movies 101, heard Friday evenings at 6:30 PM on KPBX and Saturday afternoons at 1:30 PM on KSFC.
