Carson Lund’s tragically wholesome ballpark elegy “Eephus” begins and ends with perhaps the most famous words spoken in baseball history. It is no coincidence that those words also happen to be in mourning, a dying man’s eulogy for himself before thousands of weeping, hot dog wielding, mourners. “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth”, said Lou Gehrig, the “Pride of the Yankees,” in July 1939. Gehrig was retiring from professional baseball after his diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, now known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a devastating illness that progressively destroys the motor neurons of the brain and often leads to memory loss. “Eephus” portrays the destruction of memory in its own way, of old men and young staring down the barrel of a future without the guideposts of the past for support, unsure how to move on from the game which has given them solace, community, and, for a few sunny hours every weekend, purpose. This is a movie about death, glory, petty grievances, perseverance, heartbreak, and spat sunflower seeds. It is a movie about baseball, and I felt its effect in my bones.
Named for a style of pitch that flies so imperceptibly slow that it’s near impossible to hit clean, “Eephus” takes place during the Fall in New England where a pair of ragtag men’s league baseball teams are playing their final game ever. Battered and beaten by life, these crusty, bearded men have played for generations on Soldier’s Field, a sun-faded sand lot of paint-peeled wood and stone. This will be their last game, though. The county has chosen this site to build a new middle school, and construction starts the next week. So all there is to do, these two teams in their mismatched uniforms, wielding their ratty cleats and coolers of beer, is to drag their wretched bodies to the plate and swing at looping “fastballs” from a pitcher in his fifties who growls at anyone questioning his virility and insists that he’s going to throw the full nine (Keith William Richards from “Uncut Gems”). To call the play sloppy would be an understatement, yet they treat each out and batted ball with the severity of a heart attack. There is a solemnity to their dogged persistence, not just to win but simply to continue playing. When the game runs long and the sun begins to fade, the few spectators and even the umpires call it quits, preferring a warm meal back home to whatever nonsense is happening on the field. But there’s something unholy about an unfinished baseball game. So, the men are faced with a choice between ending early or sending Soldier’s Field out on a game it deserves. To say they chose the latter is unsurprising, but HOW that game unfolds is filmmaking of the most affecting variety.
Most baseball movies are built on nostalgia, on sun-dappled infields, gap-toothed kids eating hot dogs, and thunderous Randy Newman horns. Yet “Eephus,” as it chugs along toward its haunting conclusion, has no such aspirations. Lund & Co. are not seeking wholesomeness or treacly sentiment. What they present on the faded grass of this time-forgotten ball field is a funerary proceeding for a life that was, for friendships unspoken, and an innocence the world will bulldoze wantonly if it can. There’s a reason that baseball is the most superstitious and spiritual of the major American sports. It’s an amorphically shaped creation, byzantine in its lore yet simple enough to be played with sticks and stones. A game that ends when it ends, where time is measured in the passing of small failures, and victory is finding your way back home again. Baseball will break your heart, as the men of Soldier’s Field know all too well, but the pain is half the point. To feel that pain is to know that you’re still playing, that there’s another at bat around the corner, another chance for glory, another chance to forestall the inevitable for just a little while longer. “Eephus” is a sandlot anthem raging against the dying of the stadium lights because what else is there to do in the face of the ravages of progress, of the future, of time but to play on through the doldrums.
I grew up playing baseball from the age of four until I finished junior college. That’s sixteen years where my greatest love was a game that could never love me back. I gave my life to it, my soul, my youth, and then one day, it left me behind. I resented it for that. But last year, I learned about an adult “sandlot” league in New Orleans, the People’s Baseball League, which is not too dissimilar to the teams at play in “Eephus.” In our league, people of all ages, genders, body types, and abilities play the game as it was meant be played: with wood bats, cowhide balls, overhand pitching, and unbridled passion. So now, over a decade since I broke up with baseball, I found my way back to it. Sure, one day my fastball will lose its zip, and my legs certainly hurt more days than they don’t during the season, but much like the beleaguered ballplayers on Soldier’s Field, to play is the point, for as long as you can. I’m grateful to “Eephus” for helping me understand that baseball is merely a conduit for something grander than a game, something more powerful for those cursed with being seduced by its siren’s call. Only in baseball does time stand still while the world continues its swirling. Its song is a hell of a drug, though I’ve learned its effects are chronic. But that’s just fine because one day, memory will fade. We’ll lace our cleats up for the last time, friends will leave for home, and the lights will all go black. Still, I take comfort in knowing that someone, somewhere, will be playing the game. And that person, I can say with the certainty of time, will be the luckiest person on the face of the earth.
“Eephus” is a great baseball film in a grand tradition of great baseball films and is only in New Orleans for a limited time. So, come out to the theater and grab yourself a hot dog.
You’ll be glad you did.
“Eephus” is showing at The Broad Theater.
