Baseball is one of those things that means the world to you or doesn’t, with little in-between. For a long time growing up, I was the latter.
Part of it came from not having a sports fan for a father and my hobbies leaning more towards media, but the concept of getting lost in watching a game or stepping up to bat was never meaningful to me.
That is, however, until my interests started to cross over into films about baseball. Like many people, I fell in love with Moneyball (2011) the year I graduated high school, with plenty of other Baseball films making indelible impressions on me, such as Rookie of the Year (1993), The Sandlot (1993) and A League of Their Own (1992).
Like the best films about baseball, Carson Lund’s Eephus (2025) understands the game’s soul and how it beats in the heart of everyone who grew up with it. The film understands the mysticism accompanying the deep-seeded love of the sport down to a tee, while simultaneously exploring the social relationships between men and acceptance of their elder status.
It’s the end of the season for a small Massachusetts amateur baseball beer league in the 1990s. It’s a bittersweet feeling not just for Adler’s Paint and The Riverdogs, two teams of friends facing off for the last time this year, but because the beloved stadium they’re playing at is scheduled for demolition.
Faced with the impending reality that their home turf will soon be gone, the teams decide to make the most of it by seeing the end of their season through with their final game. What follows is a hangout picture, not unlike Richard Linklater’s underrated Everybody Wants Some!! (2016).
However, where Everybody Wants Some!! focused on a group of frat house baseball players at a Texas university in the 1980s, bonding the week before classes begin, Eephus finds itself on the opposite end of the spectrum. They’re almost kindred spirits in that regard.
The camaraderie between the players is the star of the show, with relationships that feel permanently etched in stone, though we don’t necessarily get to know characters on an individual level.
The closest we get comes from the film’s starring role, Ed Mortanian (Keith William Richards), the head of Adler’s Paint. Richards brings the same hard-nosed New England grit he brought in his breakout role in Uncut Gems (2019), only channeled into the management of his scrappy group of aging amateurs.
However, the players aren’t the only characters we get to know. The film’s personality is solidified by those watching the game too, whether it’s a pair of heckling teenagers or an elderly resident just happy to be watching the game, all with their own quirks and eccentricities.
The film’s sectional narrative, dividing its attention into sections of the day (midday, twilight, etc), helps keep the energy moving from start to finish, making even a reasonable 97 minute runtime feel like a brisk walk in the park.
Even with Eephus’ relaxed, hangout feel, it’s able to capture both the immediate play-by-play action while retaining its true-to-life approach. It’s a movie that can concomitantly be enjoyed with either undivided attention or as background noise, much like the game of baseball itself.
It’s kind of surprising that a baseball movie like Eephus hasn’t been made until now, all authentically presented in the confines of a stadium itself. Oftentimes, baseball is the backdrop for greater drama in and out of the stadium, rarely the central focus of its characters. However, Eephus defies expectations with its relaxed atmosphere.
Admittedly, the film could benefit from more subtext leading into the game to allow the character dynamics to leave a greater impact. With so many characters competing for screen time and attention, Eephus sometimes gets bogged down by the sheer volume of sameness from one player to the next, and its individual arcs could be further defined.
On the flip side though, the more you know about the individual characters, the more you risk losing the collective spirit and yearning closure felt by the teams themselves at the close of the third act as reality crashes down. It’s a tough balance to strike, but Eephus’ entrenchment in the impassioned response to the love and loss of a deeply rooted pastime is more than enough to recommend to those who share its love of the game.
Review Courtesy of Landon Defever
This review was submitted for the 60th Chicago International Film Festival.
Feature Image Credit to Music Box Films