Eephus

Set around the final baseball game to be played at Soldiers Field in Douglas, Massachusetts before the field is to be demolished to make way for a new middle school, Eephus offers a look at the relationships of a group of mostly middle-aged men (many of who have been playing weekend baseball for decades). Eephus is part hang-out film, with the various conversations, disputes, and antics both on and off the field, and part nostalgic longing for a world being pushed aside by the passage of time.

While an interest in baseball is certainly going to help your opinion of the film, Eephus is about much more than the balls and strikes called or the final runner crossing Homeplate. It's a film about community, anger and loss, and a love for a game most of these men haven't played all that well for several years.

Along with the players (whose long list includes David Pridemore, Stephen Radochia, Jeff Saint-Dic, David Torres Jr., and Theodore Bouloukos) we also get the small group of hangers-on, most notably a former umpire turned historian (Cliff Blake) who has been keeping the official scorecard of the game for decades. As the game grows late, and day turns into night, the bravado of the players turns to melancholy and a shared yearning to not let the game end as, despite the constant complaining, they rage against the end of an era, even going so far to use their own cars to light the field once darkness falls.

• Title: Eephus
• IMDb: link