Like its namesake pitch, Eephus proves you don’t need heat, spin, or flash to matter.
Until last week, I had never heard of Eephus. After IndieWire named it among the year’s best films, I decided to give it a chance. Now I can’t stop thinking about it. If there has been a better sports movie this decade, I haven’t seen it.
No household names, no dramatic arcs, no big finales. Barely even a plot. Imagine Robert Altman, Howard Hawks, and Richard Linklater teaming up to make a baseball hangout indie movie, then handing off the footage to CBS Sunday Morning. It’s loose, warm, and unhurried, full of natural cadences that feel more overheard than written.
A group of middle-aged men are suiting up for their last amateur baseball game on a modest New Hampshire field set to be torn down. It’s Sunday, October 16, 1994. The Cold War is over. Bill Clinton is in the White House. Major League Baseball is on strike. The internet is more curiosity than necessity. And you can still tell where someone is from by their accent, their favorite teams, or the way they ordered a sandwich.
Eephus shines in those kinds of little details: the quirky radio ads for local joints, a worn down Sports Authority water jug in the dugout, the ball-busting between pitches. A paisan steps up to the plate? “Heeeeey! Lasagna! Gabagool!” Not only do we know these guys; we want to hang out with them.
The film’s texture hits home. For me, it brought back weekend afternoons with my dad: the drive to Leo’s Pizza on Coral Way after Little League. No $22 truffle aioli in sight — just a working man buying his kid a slice and a Sprite with a couple bucks. Fewer conveniences, sure. Life hadn’t been “optimized” yet, but it was ours.
Rookie director Carson Lund brings a surprising maturity to this leisurely tale. Most storytellers would’ve had Soldiers Field paved for a CompUSA (remember those?). Making it a school instead prompts reflection over rage, which suits the film’s understated ethos. It’s one that echoes what Roger Scruton called “a philosophy of attachment . . . to the things we love.” But, as he continued, “we know that they cannot last forever.”
Like baseball itself, the film saves its best moments for what happens between plays: the digressions, the dead air. That’s where its soul resides. It’s not about who wins or loses. It’s about being there, in that moment, at that place.
As dusk settles, the players line their cars along the field and flick on their headlights to keep playing. “Just to say we did it,” one of them says. It’s more continuity than bravado, a way of honoring what once was by doing it again.
That spirit lives in the film’s title. An eephus is a pitch so slow and unexpected it throws off the rhythm of the game. It disorients the batter by taking its time. Lund’s film does the same. By the time the game ends, you might be on yet another iOS update, with 13 Slack pings and a reminder to jump on a quick Zoom waiting for you. But this movie just plays through. Grounded, unbothered. That’s why it finds the plate.
Movies this humane are increasingly rare. Like its namesake pitch, Eephus proves you don’t need heat, spin, or flash to matter. Sometimes, it’s enough just to keep playing into extra innings.
(Eephus is available for streaming on most major platforms)