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‘Eephus’ Review: A Wry and Lovely Baseball Movie That Pitches Slowballs of Quiet Wisdom
A small-town baseball game stretches on into the night in Carson Lund's "Eephus," an adorably existential, off-kilter take on the sports movie.
Also on the radio: an announcer voiced by documentary maven Frederick Wiseman who, alongside Bill “Spaceman” Lee, the famous left-handed pitcher with the Red Sox in the ’70s, gives the film its two starriest cameos, in among a deep bench of indie character actors. Observed only by a smattering of family members, one ancient fan, an avid scorekeeper called Franny (Cliff Blake, perfectly channeling later-life Jack Lemmon) and a couple of teens deeply unimpressed by the league’s amateur status (“They’re just, like, plumbers and shit,”) one by one, the men step up to the plate. Very loosely, the cast is led by ornery pitcher Ed (Keith William Richards), who has to step up when the Adler’s Paint captain abruptly leaves for a christening, and his opposite number, Graham (Stephen Radochia), the Riverdogs coach whose endless prolonging of the game is especially pointed, as he’s involved in the Soldier’s Field demolition scheme.
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