Grant Gelt played bespectacled kid Bertram Grover Weeks, the kid who found a package of tobacco for the kids so they chew like their baseball heroes. This, as we all know, results in the kids all getting sick after going on a spinning ride, but it’s also a little bit of character foreshadowing. At the end of the film, it’s revealed that Bertram would eventually fall deep into the counterculture movement of the sixties, disappearing entirely from the lives of the other boys.
It makes a little bit of simple sense that the kid who was able to procure a substance he wasn’t old enough to have – and was eager to try – would have trouble getting through the drug crazes that swept young adults during the time.
Inspired by a True Story
If you’ve ever thought that “The Sandlot” seemed realistic and lifelike, that’s because it was based on a true story. David Mickey Evans, the director and co-writer, loved to play baseball in the summer, just like all the kids in the movie. The true inspiration for the movie came from the memory he had of a summer when his brother tried to earn a spot in a neighborhood baseball game by retrieving a ball that had gone over a fence – just like in the movie.
Just like in the movie, on the other side of the wall was a huge, vicious dog named Hercules. The movie had a small change compared to the real version, however: in real life, Hercules actually bit David’s brother. A little too scary for a kid’s movie.
Too Hot
You can probably imagine that the kids in the film were having a tough time in the heat of the summer during filming, and boy, you’d be right on the money. Filming took a mere forty-two days, but that’s still a long time to be out in the sun. While the movie takes place in California, it was filmed in Salt Lake City, Utah. While it was being filmed, a terrifying heatwave had struck the area, bumping temperatures up to as high as a hundred and eleven degrees Fahrenheit.
For those that don’t know, Fahrenheit is based on human safety – below zero and you’re in danger, and above one hundred and you’re in danger. It was so hot that Tom Guiry, who played Scotty Smalls, once became lightheaded while running around during a scene and crashed right into a cameraman.
Too Cold
As everybody who has had a couple of hot weeks out in the sun can tell you, when the other shoe falls, it falls hard. Halfway through filming, the weather turned cold – really cold, especially for summer. Only fifty-five degrees! Even worse, it was the day that they filmed the infamous pool scene. You know the one – when Squints nearly drowns himself in order to kiss the lifeguard that he’s had a crush on all that time.
If you’ve ever watched that scene and thought that the kids might have been shivering, you were probably right. The water was almost certainly warmer than fifty-five, but if the air is that cold it’s hard for anybody to control the body’s natural desire for warmth. Thankfully, it’s hard to notice if you aren’t paying attention.
The Proper Kind of Tree
The kids from “The Sandlot” had a big treehouse to hang out in when they couldn’t play ball, and it’s quite the little clubhouse as far as we can tell. Problem is, the movie had to find the right kind of tree for the kids and for the movie. One day, Evans and the crew drove around Salt Lake City, trying to find something they could use.
They happened to see a man chopping down a giant oak tree and asked him if they could take it. The man didn’t have any designs on it, so he said yes and the movie finally had its tree. In order to actually film, they poured wet cement and stuck the tree in deep enough for it to be safe
That One Dog
There’s no way the movie would have been anywhere near as successful without the constant threat of the huge dog, Hercules. By the end of the movie, of course, the gang understands that Hercules isn’t actually mean – he just wants to play. Tom Guiry, who played Smalls, confirmed that the dog was just as big in real life – meaning that the dog was quite intimidating – but several of the scenes had a puppet instead of a real dog.
For the scene in which Hercules covered Smalls in slobber, they covered Guiry’s face in an entire jar of baby food – all on his cheek, so that the dog would be interested. Thankfully, Guiry was a big fan of dogs, so he loved the experience. Who wouldn’t love being licked all over by such a friendly dog?
Didn’t Have to Fake It
There are a lot of scenes in this movie that are quite memorable, with one of the most being when the boys all go to the carnival and chew tobacco. Anybody who’s done both of these things – even if not at the same time – will tell you that it probably wasn’t going to turn out well. Indeed, the kids get sick and...make quite a splash.
Obviously, the actors didn’t actually chew tobacco. Instead, it was a mixture of bacon and licorice. That might not sound too bad, but those flavor profiles don’t really mix. Since they had to ride the rides a bunch of times, several of the actors actually got sick enough to make a splash. Not much of a fun memory for some of them, but at least the scene was a hit.
Going to the Courts
After “The Sandlot” hit movie screens, it ended up being at the center of a big lawsuit. A former classmate of David Mickey Evans claimed that the character “Squints” and he were a little too similar, and he sued saying that the portrayal was humiliating and that it caused him “undue embarrassment.” After a while going back and forth in the courts, a judge ruled that there wasn’t enough evidence of similarities between Squints and the man who had complained.
It was actually a particularly important case in Hollywood since it established a precedent that filmmakers could base characters on a real person – loosely – and not fear any repercussions. Loosely isn’t exactly defined, but as long as you didn’t make a character exactly like someone who was already real, you could at least argue it.
Nervous About the Kiss
Plenty of people get nervous about kisses when they’re adults, and even when they’re married, but what about a kid? Such was the case for young Chauncey Leopardi, who played Squints. You probably remember the scene where he tricked Wendy Peffercorn into kissing him. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that he was nervous about it – he kept asking when it would happen. Nervous or excited? Hard to tell.
Marley Shelton, who played Wendy, was plenty popular on set even when she wasn’t acting. No wonder Chauncey was about to get into character so well. When the day finally came for the pool scene, the director was nervous about how the kid would perform, so he gave Leopardi a couple of instructions. At the very least, we know that he was told to keep his tongue in his mouth or else.
Growing as a Team
If you throw a bunch of kids into a summer of filming on a baseball diamond, at a carnival, and at a swimming pool, it should come as no surprise that a bunch of them became close friends, even after the filming ended. The boys bonded and became fast friends, and they had plenty of fun together even when it wasn’t time to film.
Apparently, all of the boys snuck out together to see an R-rated movie at the theater. How they managed to get in is anyone’s guess. Which movie was it they wanted so much to see? A little-known movie called “Basic Instinct.” Seems quite a bit like something from the script of “The Sandlot.” Guiry said it was the best kind of movie to be in as a kid.
Too Much For the Actors to Handle
It’s hard to forget the s’mores scene, in which Hamilton “Ham” Porter instructs new kid Smalls on how to make one of these classic summer treats. It apparently took quite a long time to shoot, since the other boys couldn’t stop laughing at how Patrick Renna, who played Ham, said his lines. After a dozen takes that were busted by the other kids in the scene laughing too much, the director had to ask them to bite their lips if they thought they were going to laugh.
Even the scene that made it into the movie has Benny, played by Mike Vitar, biting his lip in the background to keep from bursting. If you’re looking for it, you can see it. We’re sure he’s not the only kid who thought it was hilarious.
Throwing it In
Like most films, most of “The Sandlot” was scripted, but there were a couple of moments that were ad-libbed and thrown into the film. If we asked you to guess who was most likely to have made up some of his lines, who would you say? If it’s Ham, then you’re right on the money. When Ham was arguing with his nemesis Philips, there were a bunch of lines that Patrick Renna came up with.
So, too, were a lot of the lines that Renna said while he was wearing his catcher’s mask. Some of them were all Renna, though a couple of them got some help from the director, who was shouting ideas at him from the sidelines. Thanks to Renna, we have memorable lines like “You mix your Wheaties with your mama’s toe jam!”
The Best Scene of Them All
Out of all of the scenes in the movie, which do you think was the favorite for actor Tom Guiry, who played Smalls? It was the Fourth of July scene, which had plenty of magic in it. This is thanks in part to the fact that it was filmed at the best time to capture images of people – the “golden hour” or “magic hour,” just as the sun is going down.
The shadows are long, the sun is gold, and everything has a little bit of magic in it. Guiry has said that he loved the moment when they were all watching the photographs – apparently, even when he watches it decades later, seeing all the kids’ faces brings back all the memories of his time shooting the movie.
It’s Not Killing Him Any More
Without a doubt, the most famous line from the entire movie is the repeated, “You’re killing me, Smalls!” Mostly this comes from Ham, but there are a couple of people that drop this line over the course of the movie. For the last thirty years, this line has followed actor Tom Guiry everywhere in his life. He estimates that he still hears it three or four times a day. A day!
It seems like that would be a tough thing to have to deal with. And while Guiry used to hate it, he’s started to appreciate it more and more as he’s gotten older. By this time he enjoys talking about his time on the sandlot, and he seems to appreciate how much of an impact the movie made on so many both of the time and afterward.
Big Names Among the Kids
Every single one of the boys that played the ball team was a young, unknown actor, but there were a couple of recognizable names among the adults in the film. Of course, the most obvious is James Earl Jones, who played the blind ballplayer Mr. Mertle – the kids were thrilled to find out that they would be able to meet the voice of Darth Vader.
There’s also Denis Leary, who made a name for himself playing tough guys – Tom Guiry expected him to show up in a cigar, wearing a leather jacket, talking fast. Guiry remembered telling his mom that Leary was much different in real life. Finally, there was Karen Allen, who played Guiry’s mother, who at that time had already been in one of the “Indiana Jones” movies.
Much Better Than He Looked
Scottie Smalls joins the sandlot’s baseball team despite an obvious lack of skill doing anything on the diamond, but that lack of skill was just an act. Guiry wasn’t a bad player at all – in fact, he’d spent a couple of years on Little League teams at that point. When he was cast as the newcomer to the sport, he had to be “taught” how not to use his skill to play when his character was supposed to be hopeless doing anything on the team.
He often had a hard time adjusting, and would sometimes immediately play to his abilities meaning they would have to redo the take. After the movie premiered, he was teased by his real friends that it didn’t look like he could play at all – including by none other than his Little League coach.
The Other Name
For most people, all you have to do to summon up the name of this movie is drop one of the famous lines or mention one of the memorable characters. But what if “The Sandlot” wasn’t “The Sandlot?” What if it went by a different name? As amazing as it might seem to us today, this was almost the case. While the movie was in the early stages of development, it had the working title of “The Boys of Summer.”
Not a bad title overall, especially not for what the movie turned out to be, but a lawsuit from author Roger Khan, who had published a book by the same name, meant the movie had to find a new title. The Khan book was even about baseball, which would have made it even more confusing.
Would the Real Squints Please Stand Up
Despite being central in only a few of the movie’s scenes, Squints seemed to bring something a little extra to the movie. While most of the kids were rough-and-tumble jocks, Squints was a little nebbish and nerdy. That didn’t stop him from being memorable, though. His face from the movie is a meme that is getting moderate use. When the cameras weren’t rolling, however, his actor Chauncey Leopardi was quite a bit different.
He was dressed nerdy in the film, but afterward, he would change into baggy jeans and throw on a backward hat. He didn’t actually have to wear any big glasses, either – those were just for the character. Finally, Leopardi was heavily into gangster rap. Not something his character would probably be interested in if it was available.
Inspiring the Major League
If you like watching players on the diamond, you’re probably a big fan of “The Sandlot.” But it turns out that there are plenty of actual Major League players who love the movie just as much. Depending on their age, plenty of them probably grew up watching the movie, just like all the other fans. The New York Yankees decided to have some off-season fun recreating the “Great Bambino” scene, and after that, the Milwaukee Brewers were able to recreate their own tribute scene.
Yahoo Sports even went so far as to ask a bunch of players about their favorite moment from the movie in honor of the film’s twenty-fifth anniversary. There’s no doubt that an entire generation probably owes their love of America's pastime, in part, to this movie.
Is It Really a Baseball Movie?
We have no doubt that there are a lot of people who are wondering where “The Sandlot” lands among other great baseball movies...but is it truly a baseball movie? Some people are left to wonder. Of course, the sport is prominent, but there’s only one true competition played – and the sandlot team trounces their opponents. Reviewers sometimes liken it to a summer version of “A Christmas Story.”
Sure, there’s plenty of baseball, but it doesn’t get all the focus. It’s better at being nostalgic for a time, a period, and a feeling. Even Tom Guiry agrees with the idea, saying that he thinks “The Sandlot” should be alongside movies like “The Goonies” or “Stand By Me.” It’s a coming-of-age story that includes a lot of baseball.
Making Them a Little Older
As the movie was getting started, the original idea was to have kids that weren’t too old – maybe ten years old at the most. A cast of younger kids was found, but then the producers started to wonder if having really young kids say the things and do the things in the movie was a little strange. Imagine if Squints had tricked Wendy Peffercorn into kissing him even though he was only nine.
Or if the movie had shown a bunch of eight-year-olds finding and using chewing tobacco at the carnival. After a little bit of discussion, the producers decided to let the squadron of younger kids go and then had to go about finding a new bunch of kids to be the characters a little older – in the ten to twelve range.
On the Hunt for Ham
Most of the casting went rather smoothly, but there was one big exception to that – finding the perfect person to portray the big fun that was Hamilton Porter. The movie needed someone with charm, with swagger, with a mouth to match. He needed to be big and he needed to be in charge. After a little while, the producers were wondering if they had to make a change to the character.
At that point, though, in walked Patrick Renna, who was exactly the kind of them they were looking for. It only took a quick audition for the producers to know that he was perfect for the role. Right after the audition, they told him he had a plane to catch and had to go pack.
The Very Same Number
If you have a sharp eye and a knowledge of baseball, you’re probably going to catch a couple of winks and nods to the sport. The biggest of these has to do with the Great Bambino himself, Babe Ruth. Obviously, this legendary home-run hitter plays a big part in the story, what with James Earl Jones’s character having been a teammate of Ruth’s.
However, you might have missed one final nod to perhaps the greatest player ever: the number. At the end of the film, when Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez is all grown up and a member of the Dodgers, take a look at his jersey. He’s wearing the same number that Babe Ruth had for his entire career, three, whether he was on the New York Yankees or the Atlanta Braves.
A Certain Family Resemblance
While Scottie Smalls is the viewpoint character of the film, it’s clear that the true protagonist is actually Benny Rodriguez. At the end of the film, we get to see Benny all grown up, putting his amazing speed to good use as he rounds the bases as a Major League baseball player. You might have noticed that the older guy who played grown-up Benny looked a whole lot like the original kid, Mike Vitar.
Did they just wait a really, really long time to film the final scene, so that Mike could grow up? No, of course not. They used a DIFFERENT Vitar – Mike’s older brother, Pablo Vitar. It wasn’t just perfect casting – the two are really related, and that’s why they looked so much alike.
Stepping Away From the Diamond
It would be nice to think that Benny’s actor Mike Vitar did actually grow up to become a famous ball player, but that’s not how life works out. No matter how fun it would be to have that happen. No, Mike Vitar lived a fairly normal life as far as child actors go. He appeared in a few other things, such as a member of the regular cast for the “Mighty Ducks” films, and he had some appearances in a few TV shows, but he eventually decided that the acting life wasn’t for him.
Instead, he decided to get into something much more important and useful – becoming a firefighter. Acting might be something that many people find to be quite glamorous and easy, but it still isn’t for everybody.
Practically Did It All
The story for the movie came from writer (or at least co-writer) David Mickey Evans and his memories of his own real childhood. Did you know that he also directed the movie? It’s true – It seems like a whole lot of the work that went into this classic piece of film history. But it seems that he did even more than that, too – he also serves as the movie’s narrator.
Yes, the voice that is supposedly the grown-up Scottie Smalls is actually the voice of the man behind practically the entire project from top to bottom. We suppose that the only reason Evans isn’t playing a part in the movie is that it’s about kids who aren’t even teenagers yet.
A Very Special Hat
While Scottie Smalls got a new hat a little ways into the film, showing off the Chicago Cubs, there’s another hat that is famous in the movie. It’s the huge-brimmed hat, colored a listless beige, that has a fish on it. Scotty Smalls wears it during the movie, and while it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that would be a valuable keepsake, it most certainly is – to actor Tom Guiry, at least.
He’s been trying for a while to track it down and get it back. The search has been going on for years. We’re not sure why Guiry is so interested in tracking this hat down, but he seems to really want it. He wasn’t able to keep it after filming wrapped on “The Sandlot,” and has yet to recover it.
How to Make Vomit
The tobacco obviously wasn’t real, but what about the vomit that we so delightfully got to see displayed after the kids had gone on a bunch of carnival rides? Thankfully, that was also not real vomit (though the kids did get sick while filming the scene). Instead, the concoction was a mixture of some very normal stuff like oatmeal, baked beans, split pea soup, and water. Sounds delicious.
How did they get such a lifelike splatter during the vomit shots? They loaded the delightful mixture into a bunch of paint guns so that it would splatter and splash just right. We bet you’re really glad that you know so much about how movies make it look like someone has vomited. Don’t worry, it was just split pea soup.
Getting a Different Role
Marty York was the actor who played Yeah-Yeah, one of the less fleshed-out members of the team who begins almost everything he says with “Yeah Yeah,” hence the nickname. York actually read for the role of Bertram, the kid who finds the tobacco. That part eventually went to actor Grant Gelt, which meant that there was nothing left for York to do, and was nearly going to be left out of the movie entirely. So what happened?
Well, the boy that was going to play Yeah-Yeah originally got sick at the last moment, so the producers had to scramble for a backup. They remembered Marty York, who had just barely missed out on winning the role he had been aiming for, and called him up. He was still available, and the film was safe.
A Little Help From the Fans
Marty York was a cute kid when he played Yeah-Yeah, but when he grew up things weren’t so cute. He was arrested in 2009 outside of a nightclub in Los Angeles after getting into an argument with his girlfriend. Not only did this argument get a little heated, but it also apparently turned physical, and York was arrested for battery.
He was originally going to plead not guilty, but they changed his plea, confessing. He was charged with sixty days in jail. At the time, he was short on funds and asked for help from fans of “The Sandlot” to pay his legal bills. The response was tepid, to say the least. After that, he would enter his guilty plea.
From Jail to Fitness
After spending time in prison, Marty York did a couple of odd things. He went the sad route of child stars – alcohol, drugs, and mistakes. He started a very strange YouTube channel that had him go on rants about how tough he was. Eventually, the lifestyle took its toll, and York realized he had to settle down. What did he do instead?
He started a strict workout regimen that seems to have really paid off. He’s appeared in a couple of commercials for Old Spice, Tecate Beer, and 7-Up. He’s been on the cover of “FitnessX Magazine.” Despite a tumultuous life, he seems to be doing well, and it’s estimated he has a net worth of somewhere between one and five million dollars.
Everybody Remembers Their First Wendy
It seems that more than a few of the characters from “The Sandlot” are based on real people from the life of David Mickey Evans, or even off of Evans himself, but what about the apple of every young boy’s eye, Wendy Peffercorn? If you think that it was only Squints who wanted to wolf whistle every time she appeared, you’re dead wrong.
Evans eventually admitted that the lovely Wendy was based on a real lifeguard who had an easy time filling out her red lifeguard suit – her name was apparently Bunny. Other than those rather basic facts, no information about Bunny has been revealed, and there’s almost no chance that Evans tricked her into kissing him at the pool. ALMOST no chance, but it’s not zero.
Appearing Elsewhere
While some of the young actors from this film went on to become firefighters or fitness models, some of them did actually stay in the acting biz. One of them was Chauncey Leopardi, who played Squints. While nothing else he’s been in has reached the heights of fandom or love that “The Sandlot” was able to achieve, you can still see him around if you know where to look.
Two of his biggest roles were in shows that you had a pretty good chance of seeing if you were of-age to enjoy “The Sandlot” when it came out: “Gilmore Girls” and “Freaks and Geeks.” Neither of these characters lasted a great deal of time – his “Freaks and Geeks” character was on the screen for a mere nine episodes. Hey, it might not be kissing Wendy, but it’s not bad.
Businessman and Father
Chauncey Leopardi hasn’t totally retired from acting, but it isn’t the most important thing in his life by a long shot. He’s now married and is a father of three, and he also owns a business. What is that business, you might ask? Well, he’s a cannabis cultivator. According to him, he’s been doing it for some time – maybe as long as twenty years, which is a brave thing to admit.
You have to give him some props. His most famous cut is named after his legendary crush, Wendy, and his business as a whole is known as “Squintz.” When asked about the move to legality, he says it’s been wild – he’s now guiding fire inspectors through his grow farms, making sure things are up to code.
The First Sequel
Yes, that’s right – first. “The Sandlot” was popular enough to have spawned a pair of sequels, but neither of them was even close to the sheer popularity of the first one. The first sequel was called “The Sandlot 2,” and it came out in 2005, twelve years after the first installment. It’s set ten years after the first one and has a new cast of kids take over the sandlot.
It’s really very much the same movie, just later on and with girls in the cast, and instead of a prized baseball that the kids have to get at the end of the movie, it’s a model rocket. There are some younger siblings of the original kids, and the dog is Hercules’s son, too. It’s all that good.
The Second Sequel
What the first sequel lacked in originality, the second sequel had in spades. Or, at the very least, it did a little better. Set in 1976 and released in 2007, “The Sandlot: Heading Home” features an arrogant current baseball player who gets knocked out and winds up back in his childhood, forced to relearn the power of friendship and the love of the game.
Sure, it was a little more original in that it wasn’t a complete redo of the original film, but it didn’t exactly create a new genre. Luke Perry played the main character, and while he had a different actor (Danny Nucci instead of Mike Vitar), Benny Rodriguez returned to act as the new team’s coach. Chauncey Leopardi also returned as Squints in a brief cameo.
Acting When He Can
Scotty Smalls was the perfect character to be the viewpoint of this nostalgic story. He was the new kid, he needed help adjusting, and he was hopeless in baseball – but not for much longer. Ever since appearing as this young kid, actor Tom Guiry has actually been in a good handful of films. These include “Lassie,” “Mystic River,” “The Revenant,” “Brawl in Cell Block 99,” “Wonder Wheel,” and even “Black Hawk Down.”
One of his biggest roles after “The Sandlot” was as Jimmy Donnelly in “The Black Donnellys,” a role he held for thirteen episodes. He has a pretty long list of appearances in a bunch of different TV shows and movies, some of which could claim him no small amount of fame. Maybe one day he’ll get a better phrase than “You’re killing me, Smalls!”
Balancing Work and Life
Currently living in Trenton, New Jersey with his wife Janelle and their three kids, Guiry keeps things in balance. Being a husband and a father is no easy task, and his regular job is to work overnight at Whole Foods. He still acts when he has the time and when he can fit it into his regular schedule, but it’s not super common.
In August of 2013, he was arrested in Houston, Texas when he (allegedly) head-butted a police officer who told him he was too drunk to board a flight. Apparently, he was interested in immediately proving the police officer correct. If your first instinct when put under stress is to head-butt something, you probably shouldn’t go on an airplane. Your row neighbor probably won’t be a big fan of whatever happens.
Friends to the End
While all of the members of the sandlot team become friends in real life thanks to spending a magical summer together, two of them got along even better than the others. It was Mike Vitar and Tom Guiry, the actors for Benny and Small respectively. In order to establish a close bond between them, the director had them meet and rehearse together weeks in advance before the rest of the kids showed up.
Apparently, it worked so well that the other kids thought that they had been friends for a long time. To this day Guiry and Vitar remain friends and have kept in touch ever since the movie ended. Amazing that two people can become lifelong friends just by spending a couple of weeks together practicing lines.
Why Was That Band So Special?
Every time Wendy Peffercorn enters the scene, a song by the band The Drifters plays. The first time she appears, walking down the street, the song plays “There Goes My Baby,” which came out in 1959 and was a number-one hit on the charts as a rhythm and blues hit.
When she walks out onto the pool area to take her place on her lifeguard’s throne, it instead plays the 1960 song “This Magic Moment,” perhaps as a clue to how magical the moment would be for young Squints. The latter song spent eleven weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached number sixteen later in the year. Why the movie chose that band as Wendy’s go-along music is left to the experts, but it was certainly effective given the era of the movie.
Game Recognize Game
In Benny’s dream of Babe Ruth, the Great Bambino points to Hank Aaron’s baseball card and asks if he can have it, even if he doesn’t know why. Between 1914 and 1935, Ruth was the greatest to ever pick up a bat. He might still be, depending on who you ask. He racked up seven hundred and fourteen home runs, a number that would stand uncontested until April 8th, 1974, when it was broken by...Hank Aaron.
This is information that the filmmakers had, but it wouldn’t have been known to any of the characters at the time the movie is set, which was the summer of 1962. Aaron had only been in the league for about eight years at the time and was still miles away from beating Babe’s record.
Switching up the Photos
When the sandlot boys finally get enough courage to speak to Mr. Mertle, the owner of the “vicious” dog Hercules, they find him to be a kind, friendly man – and someone who could have been even better than Babe Ruth when it came to baseball. He even knew Babe Ruth well back in the day and showed them a photo of himself with both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
Obviously, the photo is fake, as Babe Ruth died in 1948 before even the movie was set and almost half a century before it was filmed. James Earl Jones’s head was added on top of the head of Hall of Fame hitter Jimmie Foxx. The real photo is easy to find in many baseball books and online.
They Knew Exactly What They Were Doing
While the boys are in the pool, Wendy Peffercorn struts into view and takes her spot on the lifeguard chair. She immediately gets to work applying suntan lotion or sunscreen (it’s hard to tell) and generally driving all of the boys wild. Timmy and Tommy Timmons say that she doesn’t know what she’s doing (to them), but Benny responds that she knows exactly what she’s doing.
This very same set of dialogue is used in the film “Cool Hand Luke” as the gorgeous blonde is washing a car. The movie is from 1967, and it even has one of the inmates treated to the show wipe off his classes. Thankfully, Wendy Peffercorn had more than just a single safety pin holding her lifeguard suit together.
Not a Fan of the Sport
James Earl Jones has been in plenty of amazing movies such as the original “Star Wars” trilogy or “The Lion King.” Two of the other movies he’s remembered for are this one and another baseball film, “Field of Dreams.” In both of those latter two films, he plays a baseball enthusiast of one manner or another, whether a former player or a baseball writer.
Oddly, in both films, he is something of a shut-in. Strange how someone with such amazing range can be pigeonholed into such a specific set of roles. And then the really ironic part is that James Earl Jones actually doesn’t like the sport. In fact, he hates it. Why, then, did he end up in so many amazing films that have to do with baseball? Maybe he’s just a fan of good movies.
Seen in Scary Movies
When Smalls first goes to visit the sandlot, you can see him passing a store called the Vincent Drug Store. It wasn’t the first time the store would be in a movie – it wasn’t even the second time! You can first see it in “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers,” when Rachel and her friend take Jamie to pick out a Halloween costume. Is that movie set around Halloween? Probably.
Exactly one year later, in the next installment in the Halloween franchise, “Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers,” the drug store makes yet another appearance, in the scene where the Man in Black steps off a bus and starts making his way through town. We guess it makes sense for a movie series set in one town to have the same shops show up in different movies.
Paraphrasing a Famous Line
Perhaps the very most famous part of the entire movie is the line that Ham utters several times during the course of the film: “You’re killing me, Smalls.” This is actually a paraphrase of the line dropped by Denver Broncos coach Lou Saban – not even from the same sport – that goes “They’re killing me out there, Whitey.”
Saban’s famous temper resulted in him belting out this line to assistant coach Whitey Dovell. The same line was paraphrased in yet another baseball-themed film that came out a year before “The Sandlot,” “A League of Their Own” from 1992. While it might not be the most creative line we’ve ever heard, it seems to work really well in this movie, and it’s clear that it has a sports pedigree, too.
The Same Kind of Role
In “The Sandlot,” star player Benny Rodriguez has a dream of his star and idol, the dearly departed Babe Ruth. He appears in a dream to young Benny, offering words of wisdom and taking his Hank Aaron baseball card. He’s played by veteran actor Art LaFleur, who, just like James Earl Jones, also appeared in “Field of Dreams.” Incredibly, not only does James Earl Jones play a similar character, but Art LaFleur does as well.
In both films, he plays a legendary baseball player who has been dead for some time but appears to be the main character. Maybe the producers from “The Sandlot” thought he had done such a good job in “Field of Dreams” that they just had to have him. Maybe he wanted to revise his role.
In Perfect Order
The movie was shot in only forty-two days, which didn’t leave a whole lot of time to move things around. Unlike most movies, the film was shot entirely in order, so the order we see while watching the movie is the exact same order that they were filmed in. This isn’t how most movies do things – most productions will film everything in a single location, or with specific characters, or whatever they might choose.
Filming everything in order kind of seems like how a kid would assume a movie is shot, which kind of works in this instance. On the other hand, we’re not sure why a production would choose to do this since it seems a lot more difficult. Maybe it was for the benefit of the child actors, to keep them in their roles better.
The Only Way to Make It Better
For many, especially those of the millennial generation, it would be impossible to improve “The Sandlot.” But what if we told you that a very special someone was originally tapped to provide the voice of the narrator instead of David Mickey Evans? Who could possibly fill such big shoes? How could this film possibly have even more nostalgia and pure childlike joy than it already does? What if the role of the narrator was instead played by the irreplaceable Robin Williams?
It’s true – perhaps the most famous voice of an entire decade was going to become part of this movie as the adult Scotty Smalls, but talks fell through for an unknown reason. Most likely it was simply because Robin Williams was getting tons of work at that point, and was just too busy.
Only Ten Days
Despite it feeling like the movie takes place over an entire summer, the film only covers ten days. We don’t think the days are one after another, meaning there are gaps in the days that we see. Even in such a nostalgic and simple film like this one, Smalls being such a fast friend with all the others in such a short time seems a little unrealistic.
Then ten days start with Smalls moving to town. On the second day, Smalls meets the team and learns to catch. Day four is the pool scene with Wendy, and day six is when the kids play against the other team. Day nine is when Benny retrieves their last ball and is chased by Hercules through the town, and then the team gets to meet Mr. Mertle.
Ham’s Favorite Scene
Patrick Renna, who plays Ham, gets to have a lot of fun. He lobbies hilarious insults at opposing batters, he gives the girls at the pool a couple of friendly lines, and there is, of course, the s’mores scene. But the one scene that Patrick Renna remembers most fondly is the one that has the treehouse “exploding” as the boys try to use a trio of vacuum cleaners to get their ball back from the dog.
Kids are jumping for cover, falling off ladders, screaming their heads off, and there really is an explosion – sort of. Dust flies everywhere, but none of the kids are actually hurt, no matter how much they had been panicking. We have to admit, it seems like a whole lot of fun for a kid to film.
Smalls’s Favorite Scene
Meanwhile, the favorite scene for actor Tom Guiry, who played Smalls, had plenty of competition. He was one of the main characters in the film, so he was involved in almost everything, but Guiry has said that the one he remembers most fondly is near the beginning of the film when Benny teaches Smalls how to catch.
It’s a simple scene, with Smalls trying and mostly failing to figure out how a baseball glove works, but it’s fun – and that’s the other part of the scene. Benny is helping Smalls to learn how to have fun, something that had been missing from the other boy’s life for a little while. It means a lot to the movie, even if it is pretty early on, and it’s the kind of thing a movie like this requires.
He’s Blind a Lot
Not only is this not the only time James Earl Jones has played a baseball fanatic despite hating baseball, but it’s also not the only time he’s played a blind man despite not being blind. In an episode of the sitcom “Frasier,” Jones plays an old man in a nursing home who is blind.
He’s found in the season four episode “Roz’s Krantz & Guildenstern Are Dead,” in which Roz does some community service at a nursing home after a speeding ticket. One, and then a second, of her charges, die suddenly. James Earl Jones plays a blind man at the nursing home who keeps a death mask of his late wife around to remember her – which, of course, Frasier breaks accidentally. All is made right by the end, however.
From the Island to the Diamond
The film contains a couple of nods to the classic television show “Gilligan's Island” that might be a little easy to miss. The first is that one of the kids, Bertram, has the tendency to mimic Skipper’s “hat whack” when he whips his hat off to whack first Ham and later Squints. The second reference is when Benny has a dream sequence that introduces him to his idol, Babe Ruth.
During the run of “Gilligan’s Island,” many of the characters end up having dream sequences. Finally, it’s easy to see the similarities between Smalls and Gilligan as rather innocent figures who are constantly being berated. However, he also seems to line up with some elements of The Professor, a smart character among the more wild characters that he finds himself with.
Working Hard on the Makeup
This movie didn’t need a whole lot of makeup professionals on set a lot of the time (more than any standard movie, at least) thanks to the main characters all being a bunch of scruffy, dirty little boys who don’t wear a lot of makeup. While there’s the requisite detailing and stuff for the women, there is also one other moment when a makeup artist was needed: when Smalls got a black eye playing catch with his dad.
Obviously, this is makeup – the crew had to reapply the makeup several times during the filming since it was so hot out that Tom Guiry was constantly sweating, causing the makeup to run. It required constant touching up to look like a real injury.
A Whole Lot of References in One Name
We get to hear Benny’s full name only a single time during the course of the movie, during the narration when the kids are going to the sandlot for the Fourth of July night game. It is Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez, and that single name has plenty of references built into it. First off, there’s a patriotic reference to one of America’s founding fathers on the perfect day for it.
There are a couple more references as well: a character from “Gilligan’s Island,” (we’re told, but we can’t figure out who), a character from “Gunsmoke,” President Rodriguez from “The Little Dictator,” Benjamin Franklin Rando from “Like Old Times,” (those two were both played by Nehemiah Persoff). It also references Benjamin Franklin Pierce from “MASH.”
Doing the Old Man Proud
Stealing a home in professional baseball is not an easy thing to pull off. The record for most home bases ever stolen is held by Ty Cobb, who did it a mere fifty-four times in his twenty-three-year career. It’s much easier to reach home by just blasting the ball out of the park, but Babe Ruth himself was still able to steal home ten times while he was playing.
At the end of the film, we get to see Benny Rodriguez, wearing Babe Ruth’s number, using his much-vaunted speed to round the bases and reach home plate before the ball can beat him there. It’s just a small part of the Babe Ruth Story, but Benny was going to make sure that he lived every single part.
The Ancient Dog
At the end of the film, as the narrator is telling us where everybody landed after they grew up, we hear that Hercules, who became the mascot of the kids playing at the sandlot, lived to the ripe old age of a hundred and ninety-nine, in dog years at least. That comes out to approximately twenty-eight human years, which is a staggeringly long time for a dog to be alive.
The record for oldest dog is Bobi, a dog of the Rafeiro do Alentejo breed living in Portugal. Bobi was born in 1992, making him, currently, more than thirty years old. However, a big dog like an English Mastiff, which Hercules was, rarely lived to even fifteen years. Their lifespan is much more likely to be between ten and twelve years.
The One Important Person
It’s clear in the movie that Benny is a really important person in the life of Smalls – he teaches Smalls to catch, gets him a new hat, and befriends him immediately. During the course of the movie, the Scotty Smalls that we see in the movie never address any of the Sandlot gang by name except for Benny.
This is aside from the narration of the movie, which regularly brings up all of the characters in the movie, be they from the Sandlot gang or not. The single exception to Smalls only using Benny’s name during the movie itself is when he’s trying to urge Squints to wake back up at the pool along with the other kids. A clever way for the movie to show us how highly Smalls thinks of Benny.
An Element From the Actor
During the ending narration, as Smalls is telling us how all of the kinds ended up, he mentions that Yeah Yeah ended up getting sent to the army. More than one member of the cast would be in a war movie, including Tom Guiry in “Black Hawk Down” from 2001.
Arliss Howard, who played the older Scotty Smalls we see at the end of the movie, was in “Full Metal Jacket” in 1987, one of his first roles. Additionally, it seems that Arliss Howard’s small part in this movie was still important to him – either that or he was already a huge baseball fan. His second child, Gideon, was born in 1997 and has the official middle name of Babe Ruth. Gideon Babe Ruth Howard.
Almost as Devoted
Kenny DeNunez doesn’t get a whole lot of focus during the film’s runtime, but he’s the most devoted to baseball other than Benny – after the events he goes on to play minor league ball and also has some inner-city Little League time as a coach. He might have the fewest lines of the Sandlot gang in the whole movie, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a mighty fastball.
Not much else is known about him, but he tends to take a backseat, lacking some of the quirks of the other kids. However, his actor, Brandon Quintin Adams, was one of the more prolific actors among the kids, and he continues in the entertainment industry up to today in various forms.
Still Getting Plenty of Work
Adams had been in a number of famous works even before he appeared in “The Sandlot.” These include Michael Jackson’s movie-slash-music video collection “Moonwalker” as well as several seasons of “A Different World” and even “The Mighty Ducks,” (which also had Mike Vitar in it). After “The Sandlot,” he had roles in a couple of episodes of “The Fresh Princes of Bel-Air,” as well as appearances in “Boy Meets World,” “Moesha,” and “Sister, Sister.”
Eventually, he would branch out into the related industry of voice acting in video games – you might have heard him in “Kingdom Hearts II” if you enjoy that series. He was the narrator for the 2021 film “The Resort.” He’s also a family man and has said that he’s a “dad forever” when he isn’t acting.
A Funky Foreshadowing
Grant Gelt played bespectacled kid Bertram Grover Weeks, the kid who found a package of tobacco for the kids so they chew like their baseball heroes. This, as we all know, results in the kids all getting sick after going on a spinning ride, but it’s also a little bit of character foreshadowing. At the end of the film, it’s revealed that Bertram would eventually fall deep into the counterculture movement of the sixties, disappearing entirely from the lives of the other boys.
It makes a little bit of simple sense that the kid who was able to procure a substance he wasn’t old enough to have – and was eager to try – would have trouble getting through the drug crazes that swept young adults during the time.
Not Much Like His Character
Thankfully, Grant Gelt has kept away from the hard stuff and remained acting for a little while. Before “The Sandlot,” he had been in a few things like “Avalon,” “Marked for Death,” and was a voice actor for a Charlie Brown series. Afterward, he showed up in “Boy Meets World,” "Saved by the Bell: The New Class,” and “Hey Arnold!”
His final role before stepping away from the acting world was, incredibly, a TV mini-series called “The ‘60s,” which is one of the funniest unintentional pieces of trivia on this list according to us. We wonder if he planned to step away from acting just like his character had disappeared. Gelt now lives in Nashville and runs a creative agency for a tech company.
The Older Brother
Victor DiMattia portrays the older of two brothers, Timmy Timmons. He proves remarkably adept at designing ways to get their ball back from the lair of the frightening dog Hercules and goes on to become an architect who helps to come up with the idea of the mini-mall with his brother Tommy.
These two Timmons tykes are a bit background compared to some of the other members of the Sandlot gang, but they still get their moments to shine. Shane Obedzinski plays Tommy, who is known as “Repeat” for his habit of just repeating his brother – he goes on to be a contractor, working to build his brother’s idea of the mini-mall. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Getting Back into Acting
Before and after “The Sandlot,” Victor DiMattia had a bunch of small roles in dozens of TV shows, including “Punky Brewster,” “Designing Women,” “Married… with Children,” and more. He got to provide the voice of young Clark Kent in the “Superman” TV series, and he had a number of movie credits to his name as well. He was a frequent voice actor in the “Adventures in Odyssey” series after the Sandlot gang, and he was a star in the first season of “A Peaceable Kingdom,” in 1989.
In 1995 he took a break from acting, but would return in 2018 in the independent film “Get Married or Die Trying.” Since then he’s been in two more movies: “Death Rider in the House of Vampires” and “Breakout.” Neither of them was anything special.
Not Much of An Actor
Compared to the other young actors who appeared in “The Sandlot,” Shane Obedzinski has perhaps the smallest resume when it comes to acting. Before the movie, he had roles such as “Kid #4” in “Superboy” or “Bleeding Kid” in “Matinee.” After “The Sandlot,” his roles increased a little bit, acting as Nick in a pair of episodes of “Clarissa Explains It All,” and “Young Barry” in “Hidden Fear,” but that was pretty much it for Shane.
Now he lives and works in Florida, where he owns a restaurant, “Times Square Pizza Company.” He does a tiny bit of acting on the side – he appeared in the short film “Space Gila from the Deep” in 2107, in which he played CDC Dr. Ken Prescott.
Hiding Something From the Kids
When the kids finally meet Mr. Mertle, they discover he isn’t mean – he’s just a simple guy who played ball back in the day before a fastball struck his head and made him go blind. He explains that he tended to crowd the base, leading to this injury, but there’s another possibility. Mertle would have been a black man playing ball while it was segregated, though barnstormers sometimes played with integrated teams.
It’s possible that the ball that struck Mertle was intended to hit him by an upset player who didn’t approve of Mertle playing. There are several such stories of this happening in real life – Mertle might have been trying to hide this sad and violent event from the kids who didn’t need to hear such a thing.
Benny Was the Best
Through Smalls’s eyes, the movie shows us a picture of an older boy who is one of the best in the entire town: Benny Rodriguez. He’s the best on the team, he gets respect from everyone, he’s handsome, he welcomes Scotty onto the team and defends him when the others protest, and he’s the hero at the end of the film. How could a kid be so perfect?
This can all be explained by the fact that Smalls looks up to Benny since he did invite Smalls to join the team and was on his side for the entire run of the film. The two became good friends, continuing into their adult lives – of course, Smalls looked back with rose-colored glasses on his early days with one of his best buds.
Rooting for the Wrong Team
Who is the most famous member of the New Yankees in the history of baseball? Whether or not you actually like baseball, there aren’t many right answers other than the great Babe Ruth. Any Yankees fan would be blessed to possess a baseball signed by the Great Bambino...but what if you aren’t a fan of the Yankees? Denis Leary, who plays Scotty Smalls’s new stepfather, isn’t a Yankees fan but a Red Sox fan – about the closest thing the Yanks have to a mortal enemy.
Smalls’s stepfather didn’t seem all that broken up about losing such a prized possession because Leary has never rooted for the Yankees. We hear that being cast to act as a fan of a team you don’t like is pretty tough. Will anyone think of the actors?
The Original Plan for the Sequels
The two sequels of “The Sandlot” don’t amount to much, but if we had gone the original route that David Mickey Evans had for movies after the original, things might have been a lot better. Evans wanted to have every sequel take place in the next decade – so the first would be in the seventies, the second in the eighties, and so on.
The first actual sequel did take place ten years after the first, but it wasn’t a very good movie other than the introduction of girls to the Sandlot gang. It was pretty much exactly the same movie as the first one, even though some of the people in the list of characters should have known better. After that, the plan fully fell through.
Switching to the Proper Character
Some of the biggest laughs in the entire movie come from the scene when the Sandlot gang plays a real game up against another team of snotty uniformed kids. They end up thrashing the other team, and the whole time Ham hits the opposing batters with hilarious insults that are hard to forget.
In the original script, it was going to be BENNY who was slinging these insults, but Evans eventually realized that it was too out of character for the moral leader of the gang to be slinging those kinds of lines. Ham was the perfect next option, thanks to his established quick wit and big mouth, as well as his position as the team’s catcher – he didn’t even have to raise his voice for the opposing batters to hear him.
Not the Best Effects
For how good the movie is, some of the effects haven’t aged all that well. For example, some of the shots of fireworks going off on the Fourth of July are clearly stretched horizontally, meaning the movie used stock footage that wasn’t in the same aspect ratio. In addition, there are some clear digital effects used on shots of balls that are flying through the air, which takes away from the sixties aesthetic of the movie a little bit.
Finally, it’s quite obvious that there are animatronics used for The Beast before we fully see the dog. They don’t hold up that well, but it almost works in the movie’s favor – it helped to give the animal an almost mythical quality to both the kids in the movie and the kids watching the movie.
The Master of Movies
A lot of people really like “The Sandlot,” and one of those people is none other than perhaps the most famous movie reviewer ever, Roger Ebert. He was a huge fan of the film – he was the first to liken it to a summer version of “A Christmas Story.” He said that it taps directly into a rich vein of nostalgia that makes reality seem puny by comparison. The movie let kids be kids, he said, instead of forcing them to be miniature pro athletes.
It showed the world of imagination that kids have, so different from the hum-drum life that adults so often live in. He went on to mention Rodriguez hitting a line drive at the pitcher’s mound – Ebert apparently dove for cover and held up his mitt, before realizing he didn’t have a mitt and was, in fact, watching a movie.
Playing Under the Fireworks
As Smalls’s narration explains, there was only one night game a year – the Fourth of July, when there were enough fireworks in the sky to give them light to see. The narration says that it made them feel like big leaguers under the bright lights of some great stadium, and it seems like it was a good time for the actors, too.
The entire scene was shot in about two hours – not even as long as a real baseball game usually takes. We don’t know how they actually lit the scene, seeing as the fireworks were stock footage and the production probably could use real fireworks to simulate the festivities, but it went off without a hitch. You have to admit there is something magical about playing ball in the dark.
The Reason for the Year
You might not have ever wondered why this movie was set in 1962 – it was as good a year as any, right? Well, there had to have been some reason, and there most certainly was. The reason it was set in this year instead of the modern era of 1993 was because of a man named Maury Wills.
He was a Major League player with the Dodgers (at the time), and 1962 was the year he was running himself ragged trying to set a new MLB stolen bases record, which he would successfully accomplish. In the first draft of the script, Benny Rodriguez was trying to keep pace with Wills by stealing the same number of bases as him, though this sub-plot was eventually dropped from the script.
Celebrating the End of the Movie
At the very end of the movie, Smalls calls out the action to listeners as his friend Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez steals home in a Dodgers game. We get to see the dugout go wild as they cheer Benny on, but who are all those players for the Dodgers? Was it the real team? We’re afraid not.
Actually, those guys dressed up for the end of the movie were some of the people responsible for putting it together – the crew for the production. As to who, exactly, it is playing those players, that’s a little harder to tell. It might be available to see in the movie’s credits, but there’s no information online about which lucky guys got to get on the other side of the camera to wrap up the film.
One of the Biggest in the World
Unlike any of the kids in the movie, the role of Hercules (also known as “The Beast”) went to a couple of different dogs that were used throughout the movie. This all depended on what they needed the dogs to do, since their level of training varied. The one that they got to chase Benny through town until the fence collapsed on him and it was revealed that Hercules wasn’t all that bad, was the biggest of the bunch that they were able to find.
Seeing as how it was an English Mastiff, it was also one of the biggest dogs in the world at the time, weighing in at over two hundred pounds. The dog went by Gunner, and he was described as a natural entertainer. Just like his role, he was actually a big softie.
Excited to Meet the Big Guy
While all of the kids who played the Sandlot gang had goo-goo eyes for Marley Shelton, who played Wendy, she wasn’t the most interesting person to join the cast. Anybody who was a kid during the nineties would probably tell you that getting to meet James Earl Jones was way more interesting. He was the voice of Darth Vader!
Guiry still recalls the moment Jones walked into view. Even as young as Guiry had been, he had already seen “Great White Hope” and was a big boxing fan. For all of the kids, it was incredibly cool to get to share the screen with a performer as big (physically and figuratively) as the great James Earl Jones. Guiry described Jones as a very nice guy, which is wonderful to hear.
A Character Just Like Him
Guiry eventually won the role of Scotty Smalls after his sixth audition thanks to an agent who still represents him today, and from what we know of Guiry, it’s no wonder that he was chosen to become Smalls. He recalls that there were a lot of similarities between him and the character that he played for the summer – he remembers moving around a lot, and it meant that he had some difficulty making friends.
There were plenty of differences, too, but Guiry was able to take that feeling of being the outcast and turn in a great performance as Smalls. He did what so many actors, young or old, have learned to do – use something from themselves to make their character even more real.
Who Was the Best Athlete of the Boys?
In the film, Benny was by far the most talented as an athlete and at baseball in general, but what about the actors themselves? Mike Vitar was a close second behind Brandon Adams, who played Kenny DeNunez. Not only did Adams get to show off his fastball in this film, but he was also part of the team in “The Mighty Ducks,” and he was selected for a shootout attempt because he had the ability to get up to speed on skates and then come to a stop without crashing or falling over.
Vitar was also on the hockey team with him, but once again Adams proved to be the better. However, in “The Sandlot,” all he got to show off was his pitching arm and didn’t have much else to do in the movie.