Eephus

dir: Carson Lund

2025

Now, no-one has ever accused me of being that big a fan of sport, any sport, ever. And that’s unlikely to change. I have never had any interest in it, although when it comes to movies, it’s a different matter entirely. There are a stack of sports movies that I’ve enjoyed over the years, because enjoying them doesn’t require actually giving a fuck about sports.

This mentality holds true right here as well, in that this is a movie about a baseball game, but doesn’t require anyone to a) know anything about baseball, b) like baseball or c) like sports at all. This game isn’t even pretending to be more important than any of the other ones: it is just as insignificant as any of the other ones, if not more so.

But just because things are pointless doesn’t mean they’re worthless or have no meaning. I’m not going to pretend I came up with this formulation, but lauded West Australian writer Tim Winton most pithily put it when he stated that surfing, an amazing activity, was both beautiful and pointless, and that that’s what its main attraction is derived from.

And this game, as depicted in Eephus, is also pointless, but there may still be some beauty in there, somewhere, if you look hard enough.

This game, whenever it is meant to have been happening, I suspect about 30 years ago, is the last game of this suburban league at this baseball field in Massachusetts. In mere days, ground will be broken to build a new school. This is as far away from the major league as it is possible to be. The majority of the players seem to be in their 30s, 40s, some are clearly older. Some of them have athletic physiques, many look more like me: ie, like they should be wearing Santa costumes instead of baseball uniforms.

There is no crowd for this game, beyond a couple of stoner skaters who don’t even understand what they’re watching, and a couple of kids whose dad begged them to come see him play one last time.

The enemy is not urban development or apathy: many of these chaps will never play again because they don’t want to drive 30 minutes to the nearest other field on a Sunday. And they’re too old for this shit, for this excuse to spend time away from their families on the weekend. You know, same reason golf was invented.

So it’s the last game ever, between the team in red and white sponsored by Adler’s Paint, so they’re the Adler’s Paints, and the blue and white Riverdogs.

There’s no prize, there’s no trophy, there’s nothing that will come from this game’s result, nothing. And yet they all play and put in effort as if it’s both the most important and least important thing they’ll ever do in their lives.

It’s hard to get that across, I mean for me to get across just how they manage it. Maybe it’s just something that seems that way to me, only because of my disconnection from that group psychology dynamic that appeals to people who want to play in teams or who want to watch teams of people play against each other. I know that people who play even in the most amateur or casual of leagues can still act like it’s all life and death, invested emotionally to an extent that seems bizarre to the non-enthusiast.

But you can still “get” it. Only like one or two of the players playing have any chance or the youth with which to keep playing, potentially at a higher level. So for the rest of them it’s the end of their dream, which clearly must have involved the illusion of being picked up by random talent scouts or through local fame if they just kept playing long enough. They played, years past their best, because they either love the game so much, or because they love being around each other (and not their families), because they can relax, get drunk whilst they’re playing without getting in trouble for it, and have, what’s that word I’m looking for, oh yeah, fun.

Fun. What a wacky concept. The game of baseball, as depicted, seems like not only the enemy of fun but its very opposite. Torture. No wonder it’s called America’s pastime. The only thing more American is school shootings and immigrant roundups. It’s at once bureaucratic, formal and utterly chaotic. It’s a team sport, but the main focus is on the interaction between the pitcher and the batter. A great pitcher can prevent the other team from winning, but can’t on their own win a game themselves.

Everyone’s instincts, skills, rage, is focussed into distinct, narrow lines of engagement, but it’s 99 per cent a non-contact sport, except when tagging a player running for a base.

And it takes forever. The game starts at the middle of the day, and, in this instance I think the game ends at like three in the morning. They had multiple chances and reasons to end it all early, but it feels wrong to do so. They have to keep going because…

This is in no way a weighty or philosophical movie in its text, in its interactions between players and team members. At no stage does someone give a motivational speech or ever talk about baseball as a metaphor for life or something else. At one stage a player, an army veteran starts making the kind of statements about different parts of life being like warfare, and then completely backing down by saying baseball is nothing like war. It’s too civilised, it’s both too gentlemanly and too salt of the earth.

It just is what it is; an overly complicated way 20 or more men can spend time with each other without violence having to rear its ugly head, making them feel like they’re doing something worthwhile in the eyes of other men. Their wives or partners don’t care, their kids certainly don’t care, there’s no crowds or groupies chasing them for autographs. It’s just for them, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

There is a funny interlude where a chap is dragged away by family members because he’s chosen to play on a day when his niece was being christened, and that means he will arrive in his baseball uniform, showing his family where his heart really lies on such days. However mob related that sequence seemed, I think it’s part of the gentle humour surrounding these chaps who form something so tight-knit and loose at the same time through community bonds like this, and not meant to be a reflection on how neglectful some of these guys might be.

I wouldn’t go so far as to argue that this is a positive depiction of non-toxic masculinity, because I very much doubt that was on the agenda of the makers. They just wanted to make a hang out movie about guys doing guy stuff without making complete dicks of themselves, though there are some characters who are either total drunks or obnoxious jerks or both.

But it’s not baseball’s fault. Baseball as a ritual brings these people together who otherwise would never have met, and compels them to do their best for no good reason or greater reward, and that’s okay, as reflected by their easy camaraderie, and the non-abusive way they treat each other, especially when they’re shit talking each other.

The heart and soul of all that they are doing, of all they aspire to, is guys like Franny (Cliff Blake), a humble guy who’s there when they arrive and is the last to leave, who keeps score because who else is going to, and takes over the umpiring when the paid umpire decides he’s got better things to do. Whatever spectrum he might be on, whatever else is lacking in his sad little life, he is the backbone of community sports like this, because he is the purest of true fans.

Of course there’s an elegiac air to how everything is filmed and how it all proceeds, and it helps that it set in October, in fall, with the trees around the field showing off their autumnal foliage, all colluding to remind us that all is fleeting, all good and bad things come to their natural end. Mutability, who doesn’t love being reminded of that? And yet, if these players could have, are we not certain that could the game be made to not end, that they wouldn’t have kept playing, eternally?

Again, as I’ve pointed out conspicuously, I ain’t a sports fan, but I do love a good sports movie. I’m not even sure that this qualifies, but I did thoroughly enjoy watching this from beginning to end. It’s unlike almost any other movie you’ve ever seen, with none of the clichés of sports movies in particular or movies in general. Completely sidestepped them all.

The performances, well, you get the feeling many of these chaps are not professional actors, but that hardly detracts from their performances. They are all messy and perfect in their roles as nobodies doing nothing of great importance to anyone but themselves, and I applaud them for it.

As for the title, well, clearly the people who made this had no notion of making money at the box office, so they’re entitled to call the flick whatever they want, no matter how much of a red herring it proves to be. And good on them for not caring.

I cared a lot, though, and not about the result.

8 times there is no ‘I’ in team, but there are two ‘e’s in ‘arsehole’ out of 10

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“You can’t go now, or the whole game will be pointless.”
- “it was already pointless” – maybe it’s point was pointlessness - Eephus

https://www.imdb.com/video/vi1730660633/