In baseball, an eephus pitch is the ultimate fake-out. Thrown incredibly slowly, typically with a high, floating arc, its success is largely predicated on a batter being too surprised to swing.
The pitch is the perfect namesake for Carson Lund’s movie “Eephus,” a sports movie that features none of the high-stakes drama or fast-paced action typical of the genre. Instead, it’s a story of life that unfolds deliberately over the course of a Sunday beer league baseball game in Massachusetts — the last one before the diamond is bulldozed to make way for a new school.
Lund, who previously worked at the Harvard Film Archive, enlisted two Red Sox luminaries that perfectly encapsulate the themes of “Eephus” for his directorial debut: Former pitcher Bill “Spaceman” Lee, who threw the occasional eephus and continued to play professional baseball (albeit in lower leagues) into his 60s, and longtime Red Sox radio announcer Joe Castiglione, who signed off for the last time after 42 years of calling games in 2024.