The Sandlot

A coming-of-age story about baseball, friendship, and a very misunderstood English Mastiff

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Directed By: David Mickey Evans
Other Notable Films From Evans: Just this one
Starring: Tom Guiry, Mike Vitar, Patrick Renna, Brandon Adams
Screenplay By: David Mickey Evans and Robert Gunter
Movie Synopsis: A dorky fifth grader moves to a new town and joins a group of kids who play baseball in the neighborhood.
Signature Line: “Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.”

THE INTRODUCTION
An accounting of time, and people, and context

About six minutes into The Sandlot, a precocious 12-year-old named Scotty Smalls wanders out onto a makeshift baseball field, where he sees a group of kids conducting a self-run practice. While we watch him take stock of the scene, a grown-up version of Smalls recalls the experience in voiceover: 

“When I finally got up enough guts to go out there and try and make friends, I found out they never kept score… they never chose sides… they never even really stopped playing the game. It just went on forever. Every day, they picked up right where they left off the day before. It was like an endless… dream game.” 

I mention that right now because: Typically, what happens in this space, as is indicated by the subtitle of the section, is that an accounting of time, and people, and context is offered for a particular movie. As in: This is what was going on with Steven Spielberg when he directed Jurassic Park… Or: Here’s where Sanaa Lathan was in her career as she headed into Love & Basketball… Or: Hollywood looked like this when The Rock was released in 1996…

That's not the case this week, though. Because it’s not needed. Because The Sandlot as a film exists the same way that the sandlot as a field did for Smalls and the other young baseball players, which is to say: In a timeless, beautiful, unbreakable loop. 

Watching The Sandlot never feels like you’re watching a quote-unquote “movie.” Smalls isn’t a preteen actor named Tom Guiry who would eventually grow up and be in things like Black Hawk Down and Mystic River and Tigerland. He’s just Smalls. The same as how Benny is Benny, and Ham is Ham, and Squints is Squints.

That's just what it is, because that’s just how it is. No matter how many times you come back to it, that never changes.

And that's pretty much the biggest compliment you can give a movie.

THE VIEWING
A timestamped rewatch of The Sandlot

0:56: You know how I know I’m a hater? The Sandlot starts with an adult version of Smalls saying, “There is one all-time greatest moment in the history of sports...” and as soon as he said that, my brain automatically went into defense mode. Like, I didn’t even give him a chance to say what the moment was before I took issue with it. I pre-disagreed with him just because that's what my heart told me to do. That’s hater behavior.  

1:50: p.s. You know how I know I’m a SUPER HATER? Adult Smalls told the story of what he believed to be the all-time greatest moment in the history of sports. (The Yankees were playing in the 1932 World Series. Babe Ruth was at the plate in the bottom of the 9th inning with two outs. His team was down one, there was a tying run on base, and he was staring at a 3-2 count. Ruth, ever the showman, pointed at the center field bleachers, then, on the very next pitch, hit a 400-foot, called-shot home run to win the game.) And after Adult Smalls told that story (which, I mean, that's a pretty fucking great moment), my hater heart wouldn’t let me just accept his account as true, so I fact checked it. More than that, though: I fact checked it HOPING that he was wrong. 

And it turns out: He kinda was. He fudged the details a bit. Ruth did hit a home run after pointing toward the bleachers in the ‘32 World Series, but: (1) It was the top of the 5th inning, not the bottom of the 9th, meaning it wasn’t a game winner; (2) Ruth’s team wasn’t down by one, the game was tied; (3) It wasn’t a full count;¹ and, most damningly, (4) There's some contention among baseball historians as to whether or not Ruth was actually calling his shot.² Fact-checking a legendary story in the hopes that some piece of it was fabricated: SUPER HATER behavior. 

1:59: The first time I saw The Sandlot was in middle school. It happened during that end-of-the-year stretch when teachers stop teaching and just sort of start trying to run out the clock. They gathered all the eighth graders into the gym for the last two periods of a school day and projected the movie onto a big wall. I will never forget the way that gym exploded into shrieks the first time Benny “The Jet” appeared up on that screen. It was unreal. 

2:38: Smalls is here. I love this kid. He’s really sweet, and really funny, and really earnest. It’s an incredibly charming performance, made all the more delightful because, despite being the star of the movie, he spends basically all of his time talking about how incredible Benny is. 

4:24: Dennis Leary’s here. He plays Bill, Smalls’s stepdad. And listen: There is zero evidence in this movie that Bill is anything other than a perfectly pleasant fellow. All things measured, he seems like a downright okay dude. That being said, there's just something about Dennis Leary’s face that makes it seem like Bill is always just a drink or two away from deciding maybe he needs to smack Smalls around a bit to “toughen him up.” 

4:25: p.s. Leary was in FIVE(!!!!) movies in 1993 (The Sandlot, Who’s the Man?, Demolition Man, Loaded Weapon 1, and Judgment Night). His agent was fucking WORKING. 

5:40: Smalls is at the sandlot. (He followed a couple of the kids there one day and then showed up uninvited.) Look at the bill on his hat. It looks like a fucking boat sail. No wonder he was having such a hard time making friends.

8:27: The boys are practicing. Benny hit a pitch deep into the outfield, where Smalls happened to be lurking around in the bushes. Smalls tried to catch the ball, but it bonked off his head. When he picked it up and tried throwing it to the infield, he realized he had no idea how to throw a baseball. His toss went, at most, six feet. All the boys (minus Benny) started laughing at him. Smalls started crying, whimpered “My life’s over,” then ran home. That's a tough first impression to make while wearing a normal hat, let alone one that looks like what June wore in The Handmaid’s Tale. 

11:27: Bill is at the kitchen table working. Smalls and his mom are pressing him to play catch with Smalls, who wants to learn so he doesn’t look like such a dork the next time he goes to the sandlot. Check out this look Bill gives them:

Again: There's no evidence that Bill’s a bad guy. But also: Come on. That's for sure the face of a guy who’s about to whip a pitch at someone with a little too much mustard on it. There's no way this ends well. 

13:10: …Aaaaaaaaaaaaand Smalls is down. It took exactly three pitches before Bill aCcIdEnTaLlY beaned him in the eye with a curveball. Bill’s response: A curt “Sorry,” and then a subtext-laden, “You gotta watch out for that curve.” Call the cops. 

15:06: Benny invited Smalls back to the sandlot. He’s being introduced to the other players now. Let’s do player profiles for each. 

From left to right, we have:

• Timmy and Tommy Timmons: Timmy is the older brother, Tommy the younger. The former plays first base, the latter plays right-center fielder. Remember how Thanasis Antetokounmpo (who is not that awesome at basketball) was only on the Bucks because his older brother (Giannis, one of the three best basketball players on the planet) was on the Bucks? That's the situation we got going on with Timmy and Tommy, except but they’re both Thanasis. 

• Michael “Squints” Palledorous: Shortstop. Irrationally confident. Wildly confrontational. Has two front teeth the size of index cards. The only kid on the team cocky enough to wear his hat backwards. Despite his size, his tenacity makes him the fourth best player. (He’s also, we’ll come to find out, kind of a creep.)