MLB.com credits Pirates pitcher Rip Sewell with throwing the first eephus. It was named by teammate Maurice Van Robays, saying, “Eephus ain’t nothing, and that’s a nothing pitch.” MLB.com stretched for this conclusion, “In Hebrew, the word ‘efes’ can be loosely translated into ‘nothing,’ and the word ‘eephus’ undoubtedly stems from that.”

Which is not a bad description of “Eephus,” a tiny but nearly perfect baseball movie that ambles into area theaters this weekend. Some diamond classics swing for the fences: “Bull Durham,” “Field of Dreams,

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll want to blow out your elbow pitching nine innings of rec league ball. GQ caught up with the minds behind the indie film that perfectly captures both the easy pleasure of a long baseball game and the bittersweet passage of time.

A n eephus pitch is one of baseball’s many pieces of niche ephemera. It’s a weird trick throw that’s barely ever glimpsed in the professional game—an arcing lob of the bal