TRANSCRIPT Bullseye with Jesse Thorn: Carson Lund made Eephus, the best baseball movie in recent memory

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Transition: Gentle, trilling music with a steady drumbeat plays under the dialogue.

Promo: Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.

Music: “Huddle Formation” from the album Thunder, Lightning, Strike by The Go! Team—a fast, upbeat, peppy song. Music plays as Jesse speaks, then fades out.

Jesse Thorn: I’m Jesse Thorn. A few weeks back I went to the movie theater, and I saw a movie called Eephus. Here’s the premise. It’s a small New England town, the ‘90s or whatever. It doesn’t say exactly. And the whole thing takes place over the course of one day. Two rec league baseball teams meet up to play a game in a place called Soldiers Field. It’s the end of the season. Tomorrow, they’re bulldozing the field to make way for—not some developers’ condominiums, but instead: a middle school. So, this is the last game on the field. And for some of the older guys, it’s probably their last game ever. They’re not gonna drive to the next town over.

That’s the premise. And if I am being honest, it is also basically the synopsis of the film. Nothing much happens in Eephus. Nobody is putting up any real fight against the middle school. Because I mean, they’re not jerks. The film’s highest stakes are basically “Who’s gonna win, the River Dogs or Adler’s Paint?” Are you sold yet? ‘Cause you should be.

It’s honestly a stunning movie. Beautiful, funny, a little sad. In her New York Times review, Alissa Wilkinson called Eephus “a baseball movie, but not a sports movie.” That feels really appropriate. Baseball can burn slowly. To quote one of the players from the film, “One moment you’re looking around for something to happen. And then, poof, it’s over.”

Carson Lund directed Eephus, his first ever feature film. I’m really excited to get to talk to him about it. Here’s a bit from the film to start. In this clip, the River Dogs heckle a player on Alder’s Paint in an attempt to strike him out. The player from Alder’s Paint hasn’t had a really good meal in some time. The River Dogs use that to their advantage.

 

Transition: A whooshing sound.

Clip:

(The River Dogs shout out foods nonstop from the sidelines.)

Umpire (Eephus): Steee-rike two!

(Unhappy chatter from the team.)

Speaker 1: Got a lot wrong with that one, D.

Catcher: (Chuckling under his breath.) Meatball sub! Lasagna! Gabagool! (With an Italian flourish.) Sopressa!

Hitter: I’ll crack your nose, kid!

Umpire: Fellas!

Alder’s Paint Teammate: Right through that damn mask!

Umpire: TIME! Fellas! Am I in a deli?! Is this a meat market?! Am I selling you ham?! Cut the (censor beep) and play.

Speaker 1: You like pizza on ham?

Speaker 2: Pizza on ham? Ham on pizza. Yeah. It’s pretty good.

Transition: A whooshing sound.

 

Jesse Thorn: Carson, welcome to Bullseye. I’m so happy to have you on the show.

Carson Lund: Thank you for having me.

Jesse Thorn: Do you like baseball movies?

Carson Lund: Yeah. Yeah, I do. I haven’t watched them in a very long time, with the exception of like Ken Burns’ Baseball. I think I—during COVID, I had a lot of time, obviously, as most of us did, and I binged Ken Burns’ Baseball. But as for like the real, canonical baseball films, I haven’t watched them in ages and sort of like—we made an effort not to watch them; shielded them from our view when we were writing the film in an attempt to kind of like do our own version of a baseball movie. You know? And not feel like we were too influenced by those other films.

Jesse Thorn: Yeah, I mean, baseball movies tend to have a certain tone that kind of like follows from Pride of the Yankees. I mean, Pride of the Yankees is a wonderful movie. But they tend to have a lot of sports movie, in general, in them. And then maybe a little bit of an elegiac quality added on top of that.

(Carson agrees.)

You know? It’s a very particular thing. And when you started making this movie, I imagine that you were working against that kind of movie in your mind, even if you hadn’t gone back and re-watched them.

Carson Lund: To an extent. I think maybe the elegiac quality comes in the last four decades. Prior to that, something like Pride of the Yankees or Big Leaguer or some of these other older films, I think they’re more triumphant/celebratory, because it was the national pastime. And was seen as that, you know, here in Hollywood as well. Yeah, I mean, it’s tough. I’m someone who loves the game of baseball, playing and watching it. And think for people like me, watching a baseball film can be difficult, because we tend to just fixate on what we see as being inauthentic or implausible about the representation of the game.

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And typically when I watch these films, for me, what I feel like is really lacking in them is an appreciation for the downtime of the game. That it’s a game full of all these quiet moments in between the action. And by virtue of just Hollywood screenwriting and, you know, generally the studio’s estimation of audiences’ patience, we usually don’t get those moments. Those are not dramatized. It’s just the big moments of the game, the home run, the double play, whatever. And that feels a little hokey to me ’cause I think that it’s not really capturing the texture of the game. So, I went into making Eephus knowing that that was something we wanted to highlight, and that that alone, that emphasis, would make it quite distinct from other films in that genre. You know what I mean?

Jesse Thorn: I think as a baseball fan myself, one of the things that I have a hard time explaining to people who don’t like baseball is the extent to which baseball is more about companionship than excitement. That its occasional dullness or slowness is actually what’s good about it rather than a problem with it.

Carson Lund: Mm-hm. Absolutely. I mean, I think this is true of life in general—that the parts of life that people talk about as being boring or dull or slow, I think we need to value those moments more. Especially in the modern world. Things moving faster and faster; everyone’s seeking, you know, spectacle or— On top of—you know, like we’re already inundated with all this information, and yet we want more spectacle. I think it’s important to value that slowness. And that’s always been the case for me. I enjoy being there on a baseball field and being able to lose track of time and maybe be distracted by the wind in the trees or watching the way a pitcher warms up before throwing a pitch, the way a batter warms up. All of this kind of stuff.

It’s a real human game. You can—there’s so many people doing so many different things, and most of the time they’re in a sort of waiting pattern. And you know, I think that allowing yourself to just slow down, be patient, and be attentive to all those nuances is something that I think the film is trying to heighten your senses to those kinds of things and maybe make an argument for the value of boredom in the concurrent world.

(They chuckle.)

Jesse Thorn: We’re gonna take a quick break. In just a minute, even more with Carson Lund—the director of the wonderful new film, Eephus. Keep it Locked. It’s Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR.

Transition: Thumpy synth with light vocalizations.

Jesse Thorn: It’s Bullseye. I’m Jesse Thorn. I’m talking to writer/director Carson Lund.

You played pretty competitive baseball as a kid and teenager. You played travel ball and were a shortstop; shortstops tend to be one of the better players on the team at that level. You also had a dad who played adult league baseball, rec baseball. Did you go to games with him?

Carson Lund: Yeah. He would always come to my game. He was like my coach for so many years. And then—

Jesse Thorn: Was that good or bad?

Carson Lund: Great. Fantastic. Fantastically supportive.

Jesse Thorn: Is that why you were the shortstop?

Carson Lund: No. No. He wasn’t always the—(stammering) I should just say—

(Jesse laughs.)

He was like an assistant coach or something. But I mean, just—in a more casual sense—

Jesse Thorn: Okay. I’m tired of these travel ball nepo babies.

Carson Lund: (Chuckles.) In a more casual sense. Like, he was always my informal coach, I should say.

Jesse Thorn: (Playfully skeptical.) Sure.

Carson Lund: Yeah, but I’ve played in rec leagues myself for now ten years, here in Los Angeles. Which is a very different kind of game. It’s competitive, but there’s not as much pressure around it. And when I started to think about this film, I felt like my own experience playing was part of the story, but I also needed to go back and watch my dad play a bit more. I had seen some games of his, but I’m— You know, now that—he lives back in New Hampshire, and now that I live here, it’s tough. Because it would happen during the summer, and I wouldn’t be home very much. So, I made a point of going to some of those games.

Jesse Thorn: Is he still playing?

Carson Lund: (Stammering.) Yeah, well, that’s—n-not exactly, no. And that’s part of the impetus for the film. He was playing regularly, and it was a real outlet for him. And then the knee was just ailing. Right? And that ultimately led him to have to quit this league. And I mean, we always are saying, “Well, why don’t you just get a knee replacement?” (Chuckling.) And of course, that’s a very—

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That’s an insane procedure. That’s like very frightening. So, he hasn’t done it. But I just—knowing that led me to thinking about the way in which our bodies are always in a process of deterioration very slowly. And I’m not old, per se, yet. But I’m feeling it myself. Every time I play, I’m a little more sore. So, I just thought about the way that that happens, and then we lose touch with these, you know, passions that we might associate more with our childhood. So, I felt like—I noticed when he didn’t have that outlet, I felt like—I could sense there was this wistfulness—you know?—and the desire in him to do that. And he still doesn’t play. But it’s—you know, I think— And I think the suburbs can be a very isolating place, and having an outlet like that is very important. So, all of those things were weighing on me when I was kind of writing this script.

Jesse Thorn: What did you think of the grownups when you were a kid and a teenager?

Carson Lund: Oftentimes, uh, bossy with their kids, especially some of the coaches. It ultimately is what alienated me from playing, I think, is seeing kind of the way that certain parents would create these very outsized expectations for their sons to achieve something or get to the next level. And I think my dad was very good at riding that line. Like, he pushed me; he wanted me to get somewhere and continue doing what I loved. But over time, I just—I was seeing kind of the… the poisonous quality of that around me and what it was doing to some people. And it just wasn’t fun anymore to play with those people and to be around that kind of expectation.

So, it was in high school that I kind of just decided, you know, I’m done with this. And I was getting much more interested in film and making movies on a little camcorder in town with my good friend, who’s actually a co-writer of Eephus—Michael Basta. So, we just started doing that all the time, and it drifted me away from baseball. And I also didn’t enjoy being in the weight room.

(They chuckle.)

Which is what I needed to do in order to ascend to that next level. I was—you know, I was athletic, but you need to go that extra mile to really push yourself.

Jesse Thorn: Did you have that level of competition inside you?

Carson Lund: Yeah, I get—I’ve never been an astrology person per se, but I do know that I’m an Aries. And I’ve been told that’s very much a competitive sign. (Laughs.) I enjoy competition, but it’s—I don’t get really serious about it. I don’t get angry the way that some players—some of my teammates in the past—have gotten angry about things. You know, of course you get frustrated by your own performance and stuff, but I enjoy competitive activity. Yeah. It’s very fun for me.

Jesse Thorn: Professional baseball players all seem to end up living in Arizona and Florida.

Carson Lund: Mm. That’s another reason I couldn’t keep playing. No way I’m gonna live in those places.

(They laugh.)

Jesse Thorn: I mean, shout out to Arizona and Florida. They have their merits. But you know—

Carson Lund: Too hot for me.

Jesse Thorn: I was—as a San Francisco Giants fan, I would get mad and disappointed that people didn’t want to come play for the Giants and live in San Francisco. I’m like, “Well, why wouldn’t you wanna live in San Francisco?” And then I was like, “Oh, because they’re baseball players, and if you live in Arizona you can just always play baseball.” You just always have access to playing baseball.

Baseball is very seasonal, and it’s particularly seasonal in a place like New England. Was the idea of the sort of passing of time and the passing of the seasons in your mind—and the sort of autumn of the end of the baseball year in your mind when you were thinking about the film?

Carson Lund: Yeah, absolutely. leaving New England has been something that’s really marked me in the last—not necessarily at first. I moved to California. I was very excited about it, and I do love living here. But over time, it’s weighed on me—the lack of the seasonal change. I think it marks time in a really profound and satisfying way. So, I knew I wanted to make a film back in New England for whatever I made first. And fall specifically, I think it’s such a poignant season. You’re seeing, visibly, the passage of time with the foliage. And I knew I wanted to feel that over the course of the film. And by nature of having shot it—you know, we couldn’t shoot it on one day. We had to shoot it throughout the whole month of October—that there were gonna be intimations in the background of that change. You were gonna see the leaves kind of go from that early period to falling off the trees.

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And I thought that that was a— I knew that this was a film about people at a kind of turning point in their lives and a sort of a point where they’re more aware of their bodies and their mortality. And yet they’re also sort of trying to cling to this childhood. So, I felt like setting it in that kind of more—that very transient season where you’re very aware of the impermanence of things was— That was like the first idea, really, was to try to capture that season.

And for me, like just in my memory, playing fall baseball is… it’s so precious. Because, you know, sometimes it’s too cold; it stings your hands; the grass is frozen in the morning if you play a morning game. But it’s really nice in New England, because you’re just trying to get as much of the game in before what you know will be a long winter, you know. And you won’t have baseball until April or March, if you’re lucky. Sometimes not even may. So, yeah, it’s kind of—you really—when you’re playing baseball in October in New England, you’re trying to—you feel how precious it is. And now having played here for a long time, you really don’t feel that in the same way. ‘Cause you can play any time, even in the—quote/unquote—“winter”, it’s pretty tolerable. It’s actually warmer sometimes than fall baseball in New England.

So, given that this is a film about these people on this sort of—at this juncture, deciding what the next chapter of their life is and having to say goodbye to this kind of institution and ritual that they’ve had for so long, I felt like it has to be set in this particular season.

Jesse Thorn: These are mostly old dudes. I’m not saying exclusively old dudes. There’s a fair number of younger and middle-aged guys. But it’s a pretty old crowd. Was that a choice that you made? That this isn’t a bunch of—you know, forget 20-year-olds, like everybody wants ‘em—but it’s not even a group of 30-year-olds. This is a group of a few 25-year-olds and then a bunch of 46-year-olds. (Chuckles.)

Carson Lund: Yeah. Yeah, well, that’s accurate to the league my dad played in. Less so of the league I play in, although my team, currently, we just are getting older and older.

(They chuckle.)

We’re not really picking up new players. But I think that’s also just a reflection of suburban life. Younger people tend to move away, and then what’s left is their parents. And now they have this void of, you know, their son who used to play. And now they wanna play, and they wanna fill that void. So, it is an accurate reflection of reality, but it was also—yeah, maybe it’s a little edged in the favor of the film, thematically, that these men are—they’re really kind of falling apart. (Laughs.) I think it makes all the film’s ideas a little more poignant.

It was a gradual process of acceptance for me, whereby originally I wanted this movie to be about players who were once quite good and are now just dealing with the shortcomings of their body. And so, you can still kind of feel that they deeply understand the game, and they still have their chops.

Jesse Thorn: That’s a casting challenge.

Carson Lund: That was a very big casting challenge.

Jesse Thorn: (They laugh.) There’s only one Tom Selleck! And he’s on Blue Bloods.

Carson Lund: Right. And so, over time I came to accept that this is actually a movie about people who are there more so for the love of it and all of that, as opposed to—you know—they need to keep the chops up; they’re worried about their stats. No. It’s actually—they’re often very sloppy. And I think that is more poignant. It’s both a reflection of how some of them really don’t even care about the game—or about the sport, rather. They care about the game, but not the sport or the athletic component of it. And also, just about that they’re at a point in their lives where they can’t even perform at the level that they might have been able to when they were young.

So, we just embraced all the kind of athletic sloppiness on the screen. And I felt that as long as I was seeing it unfold in kind of these master shots, as opposed to cutting it up into all this bits of action— Which is another problem, I think, with a lot of baseball films is they try to you into complacency with—(stammering) or make you believe a certain athletic prowess that isn’t there, because all cut up into montage.

Jesse Thorn: Like in basketball movies where someone is like running towards the lane, and you see them like—

[00:20:00]

—do that body move of “I’m about to jump,” and then the next shot is then is the ball going through the hoop, but it’s just an arm?

Carson Lund: Yeah, exactly.

(Jesse laughs.)

And there’s equivalent—there are parallels in the realm of baseball movies to that, you know. The pitch is released. Cut. The swing happens. Cut. The ball flies through the air in slow motion. Cut. There’s a guy running towards the warning track. Cut. It’s just—it’s so much of that. And I wanted to see all of this play out so that, as an audience member, you can’t say, “Oh, he’s trying to hide the fact that they’re sloppy.” No, it’s actually just embracing it, fully. But at least you’re seeing these plays develop. Which, as a spectator of baseball, that’s sort of what’s so thrilling about it, is being able to understand the distance between all these players, the distance between the bases, and the how fast the ball can move between all those different points. So, I wanted you to feel that as a viewer, even if it’s at a significantly slower pace than what you see at an MLB game.

Jesse Thorn: We’ll wrap up with Carson Lund after a quick break. When he wrote Eephus, a movie about a single rec league baseball game, he knew early on he didn’t want to end things with a big, grand finale. We’ll talk about what he did instead. Stay with us. It’s Bullseye for MaximumFun.org and NPR.

 

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Transition: Thumpy synth with light vocalizations.

Jesse Thorn: Welcome back to Bullseye. I’m Jesse Thorn. I’m here with Carson Lund. He’s a writer-director who just released his first feature film, Eephus. It’s a baseball movie set during the very last day of the season for a rec league playing their final game on a field that’s about to be bulldozed. It’s really great. Let’s get into the rest of my conversation with Carson.

Were you ever tempted to have a grand finale of some kind in the film?

Carson Lund: No. (Beat. Laughs.)

Jesse Thorn: The sun goes down, but…

Carson Lund: Yeah. No, the minute we had the idea that there’d be a character who brought fireworks was the minute we decided that we would not see the fireworks displayed.

(Jesse startles into laughter.)

It was very clear to us that we couldn’t have a grand finale. It’s not about a big catharsis. Everyone is leaving this field in a state of uncertainty and ambivalence… and repression, frankly. So, to show that would’ve been—I think—just antithetical to what we were doing. But there is a great walk-off walk to end the game.

(Jesse laughs.)

Maybe you’ll have to cut that. I dunno.

(They laugh.)

That’s kind of a spoiler.

Jesse Thorn: I don’t think the folks on Reddit are gonna get mad at us for spoilers on this one.

(Carson laughs.)

In r/StarWars or whatever. They’re not gonna—

Carson Lund: Well, it’s a film that announces what will happen. And I think that finding out what will happen is not the point; it’s the journey. It’s the living there with the characters, hanging out with the characters, experiencing what they’re experiencing, and just experiencing the feeling of being on a baseball field on a fall day. didn’t want there to be any major narrative revelations that would take emphasis off of the simple passage of time, which I think is really, ultimately, the crux of the film. So. But early on, when we decided we were gonna do a baseball game, we said, “Well, we have to find the least sensational way for this to end.” (Laughs.)

And that’s like—if it’s a tied game in the ninth or tenth, like you gotta just do a walk-off walk. (Laughs.) Because I think so many endings in life, so many goodbyes in life, we don’t even realize they’re happening when they happen. And they’re not ceremonious; they’re just—it’s just little beat in time, and then we move on. And then only later in hindsight do we realize how important that moment may have been. So, I didn’t want the film itself and me as a director to be imposing onto it a sense of grandeur of—

[00:25:00]

—you know, they’re having a fantastic time at the end. It’s not about that.

Jesse Thorn: The whole structure of the film is built around one last game in this field that’s going to be razed. In a normal movie, it would be getting razed for a building of condominiums or something like that.

(Carson agrees.)

What is replacing the field in Eephus?

Carson Lund: It’s a middle school. Which I think, obviously, you can’t complain about that too much. And it puts into relief the characters’ frustration. You get a sense of “this is unwarranted,” you know? Perhaps even their children will go to this school. They can’t really complain about it too much. So, you get a sense that all of their gripes are personal, and it’s not—they can’t scapegoat something else. Other than maybe Graham, the guy who’s on the team, and he is responsible for green lighting this project with the school. But even that’s sort of like a—it falls on deaf ears. It doesn’t really work as a blame game.

So, I think, yes, the film could easily have been about gentrification. And gentrification is a very salient issue, especially with regards to public green space and the dissolution of recreational leagues, much like the one you see in the film. But I thought that would’ve simplified the movie and narrowed it. So, I felt like by making it a school, you get a sense that there’s a brighter tomorrow ahead of this, potentially, and that our society is always in transformation, and people just have to deal with it. It makes the dilemma of the film far more existential than political. And I thought, ultimately, made having to wrestle with these characters’ emotions a little bit richer to me. And funnier.

Jesse Thorn: How long do you think you’re gonna play rec league baseball?

Carson Lund: As long as I can. I gotta do more cardio to keep up with it. But I still play every Sunday. We’re in the middle of a league right now—or middle of a season, I should say. I think we’re even 500 (chuckles) at the moment. Yeah, I mean, I still play shortstop. I’d like to continue for as long as I can. It’s a good way to— I find it very therapeutic to just be out there once a week and lose track of time. And there’s still nothing better than the feeling of cracking a double in the gap. (Laughs.) Or turning a double play.

Jesse Thorn: Do you dive for a ground ball in the hole?

Carson Lund: Less so than I used to.

(Jesse laughs.)

Only if I really feel like I can get it.

(They laugh.)

Yeah. But also, the other thing is that the fields here in LA tend to be very arid. You know? We don’t get a lot of rain, and the kind of fields I’m playing on aren’t the necessarily the top-notch with great grounds crews. So, often these fields are very—they’re like cement, you know? So, even eight years ago, I wasn’t diving, necessarily. On a nicer field, I will. But it’s much different than playing on the East Coast, where there’s always a softness to those fields.

Jesse Thorn: I remember in college complaining to my buddy about how we would have to drag the field ourselves before games in our rec league—and our kids’ rec league. And he was from Oakland; I’m from San Francisco. And he was like, “Oh, we had to do this thing where we lined up along one foul line and then swept across the foul line like a—you know, like we were looking for a lost child, (chuckling) but we were actually just looking for syringes.”

(Carson laughs.)

And I was like, “Okay, you got me beat.” (Laughs.)

Carson Lund: Wow. Got you beat. That brings to mind something about the film and the production. Which was that—well, I didn’t want there to be chalk lines, because we would’ve always had to worry about the continuity of the chalk lines throughout the film. So I said, “Well, this field’s kind of in disarray. No one cares anymore. So, they’ve let it go.” I actually had to talk to the town, “Okay, like a few weeks before production, just stop mowing the grass. Like, let the weeds come in. Let the cleat marks stay.” And so, it looked great on day one, and then we did get a lot of rain that month.

[00:30:00]

And so, we had to keep doing groundskeeping on the field, but not to make it look beautiful, but to make it look like it had been played on. You know? And often we would have the whole crew out there, and cast members, volunteering to drag the field and to carry fresh dirt from the clubhouse over, throw it on the puddles, sweep the puddles away, and re-rake, and then clomp around on the cleats. So, it was an all-hands-on-deck kind of thing. But it would’ve been much easier if we were trying to make the field look perfect, actually.

Jesse Thorn: I mean, I think yours—we can confidently say—is the first film ever to give a producer credit to a groundskeeper.

(They chuckle.)

Carson Lund: That’s true, actually! Tim Bonin, the steward of Soldiers Field—lives in Douglas, Massachusetts—was extremely helpful in helping us secure this field and then anything we needed throughout the production. You know, they actually moved the rec league in town. They moved it to a field over. Which is—we inflicted upon them the fate that the characters in the movie have. So, they had to all go, you know, 20/30 minutes away to play. (Laughs.) They were more willing to do it, I think, than the characters in the film.

Jesse Thorn: Well, thank you so much for taking this time to talk to me about the movie. I really loved it. It was really a joy to get to watch.

Carson Lund: Thanks so much. I appreciate being here.

Jesse Thorn: Carson Lund. His new movie, Eephus, is wonderful. Genuinely, one of the best baseball movies ever made. It’s playing in a few theaters now. You can also rent or buy it on demand on pretty much every digital platform. Go check it out.

Transition: Bright, chiming synth.

Jesse Thorn: That’s the end of another episode of Bullseye. Bullseye is created in the homes of me and the staff of Maximum Fun—as well as at Maximum Fun HQ, overlooking beautiful MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, California. Guess where I went? I went to the zoo this weekend. You know what’s great? The zoo. They got a bunch of different animals there. I saw like an adolescent gorilla chasing around a squirrel. It was the best.

Our show is produced by speaking into microphones. Our senior producer is Kevin Ferguson. Our producers, Jesus Ambrosio and Richard Robey. Our production fellow at Maximum Fun is Hannah Moroz. Our video producer is Daniel Speer. We get booking help from Mara Davis. Our interstitial music comes from our friend Dan Wally, also known as DJW. You can find his music at DJWsounds.bandcamp.com. Our theme music, written and recorded by The Go! Team. It’s called “Huddle Formation”. Thanks to The Go! Team. Thanks to their label, Memphis Industries. Special thanks this week to Jacob Derwin at Technica House in New York City for recording our interview with Alexander Skarsgård this week.

You can follow Bullseye on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, where you’ll find video from just about all our interviews—including the ones you heard this week. And I think that’s about it. Just remember, all great radio hosts have a signature signoff.

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