Rapid Review: Eephus (2025)
Eephus is a quaint sports drama that depicts the last ballgame for an amateur baseball league before the field is torn down for a middle school. It is a true ensemble effort that truly made me miss not just playing baseball, but the sense of community and friendship I had when playing with my teammates.
Eephus is an interesting film in the sense that it is set in one day, and only takes place for this one last game. We know the players of the game as well as Franny, an older fan of the game who keeps score, but we know absolutely nothing about who they are beyond this game. The movie does not attempt to single anyone out and develop them, but we do get glimpses into their lives.
Take Graham, the captain of the Riverdogs. All we know about him is that he is responsible for the field being destroyed for the school to open. We can see how that has caused tension within his team and a level of resentment that has been bubbling the entire time. Then there’s Ed Mortanian, the captain of Adler’s Paint. In the middle of the game, he practically has to be dragged off the field for his niece’s christening, indicating that this game and this sport mean more to him than family.
I found it interesting that one of the writers, Nate Fisher, wrote on Letterboxd how he and director Carson Lund had bonded over baseball and wrote a movie about the challenges of men making friends with each other as they had seen each other countless times at the Harvard Film Archive without ever introducing themselves. It’s something I caught on to as well throughout the film.
Within each team, there were different groups of friends. It felt like some people had joined a league to keep playing baseball, while others had joined as a group. Some interactions felt like people had just met each other, while others already had that natural chemistry. Personally, this is something I experienced a lot growing up playing ball. Most of the time I played, it was with the same kids from my town, but when I played with a travel team, there were those friend groups that were preexisting. The only thing that connected us was baseball.
To that point, that was the feeling I came away from watching Eephus. It didn’t matter where these guys came from before or where they were off to after the game; baseball had brought them all together, and they all bonded through their love of the game. Some of them were older and knew that this was it for them, while some were younger and could probably just join a new league if they chose, but it was undeniable that they all were there for each other. People who in ordinary life might never have crossed paths developed a friendship that they can look at fondly. As the game went longer than the umpires wanted to stay, they chose to stay and play to give themselves and the field the proper send-off they deserved.
Being a Massachusetts-based movie, it was nice to not just hear references to the local area but to respect the legends of Boston. Bill “Spaceman” Lee, former pitcher for the Red Sox from 1969 to 1978 appears in a cameo to pitch an inning. He then vasnishes as mysteriously as he shows up. The voice of the Sox Joe Castiglione also makes a cameo as a pizza truck vendor, who spends his time talking about how much he hates being a pizza truck vendor.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Eephus is funny and charming, all while telling a pretty relatable story about adult friendship throughout a baseball game. You don’t have to like or even understand baseball to see its value. There’s no fancy editing to amp up the action. At the end of the day, it’s just a bunch of dudes playing ball together, not worried about tomorrow.