Plot
In the late spring of 1962, fifth-grader Scott Smalls moves to the San Fernando Valley, right outside of Los Angeles with his widowed mother, and recent stepfather, Bill. As school ends and summer begins, Small's mother encourages him to make friends, and he tries to join a group of boys who play baseball daily at the neighborhood sandlot—brothers Timmy and Tommy Timmons, Michael "Squints" Palledorous, Alan "Yeah-Yeah" McClennan, Bertram Grover Weeks, pitcher Kenny DeNunez, catcher Hamilton "Ham" Porter, and their leader and best player Benny Rodriguez. Everyone but Benny laughs at Smalls' lack of ability, and an attempt to play catch with his stepdad Bill injures Smalls and leaves him with a black eye. Nevertheless, Benny invites him onto the team and helps him improve his skills and earn the boys' respect.
When DeNunez taunts Ham with his trademark pitch, "The Heater", Ham hits a home run into an adjacent backyard, and the team is dismayed. However, they stop Smalls from retrieving the ball and tell him of "the Beast", a legendarily fearsome English Mastiff living behind the fence. According to Squints, in 1942, Mr. Mertle, the owner of the property, bought a young dog, and it grew increasingly big and vicious, until Squints' grandfather, who was chief of police at the time, presented Mr. Mertle with a court order to keep the Beast chained up. In the years since, many baseballs have gone over the fence, but every one has been claimed by the Beast.
One particularly hot day, the team opts to go swimming at the neighborhood pool, in lieu of baseball. While there, Squints fakes drowning to receive mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from lifeguard Wendy Peffercorn, with whom he has a crush; he kisses her, and she kicks the boys out, but as they leave Wendy waves at Squints with a warm smile. The team plays a Fourth of July night game by the light of fireworks, and Smalls observes that, to Benny, "baseball was life." They later play against a snooty rival Little League team, and win. They later celebrate at a fair, where a combination of chewing tobacco obtained by Bertram and riding the Trabant causes a huge sickly mess.
One day, Benny hits the cover off the team's only ball, much to the team's amazement. With Bill away on business for a week, Smalls opts to keep the game going, by borrowing his prized baseball autographed by Babe Ruth. Unaware of its value, he hits his first home run, sending it into the Beast's yard. When the team learns of the autograph, they quickly buy another baseball, and forge Babe Ruth's signature on it, to be a temporary replacement, while they come up with a plan to rescue the autographed ball. Smalls suggests going to Mr. Mertle for assistance, but Squints insists Mr. Mertle will not help them. The team attempts to recover the lost ball with various makeshift devices, but each attempt is thwarted by the Beast. As Smalls prepares to accept his fate, Benny dreams of the spirit of Babe Ruth, who advises him to rescue the ball himself. "Heroes get remembered," says the Babe, "but legends never die. Follow your heart, kid, and you'll never go wrong."
Equipped with a new pair of PF Flyers, Benny retrieves the ball by "pickling" the Beast and leaping back over the fence, but the dog breaks its chain and chases him through town. Benny races back to Mr. Mertle's yard, but the Beast crashes through the fence, and it falls down on top of the dog. Smalls and Benny free the dog, who gratefully licks Smalls' face and leads them to its stash of baseballs. The two meet Mr. Mertle, who turns out to have been a baseball player and friendly rival of Babe Ruth, having lost his sight after being struck by a pitch. He kindly trades them the chewed-up ball for one autographed by all the Murderer’s Row, and asks them to visit every week to talk baseball.
Bill loves the Murderer's Row ball, but still grounds Smalls for a week for taking and ruining his autographed ball. Their relationship improves and Smalls begins to call him “Dad”. The boys continue to play on the sandlot the rest of that summer, and several subsequent summers with the Beast – whose real name is Hercules – as their mascot. As the years pass, they eventually go their separate ways: Yeah-Yeah enlists in the army, and later develops bungee jumping; Bertram disappears into the counterculture movement; Timmy and Tommy become wealthy upon inventing mini-malls; Squints marries Wendy, has nine kids with her and the two run the local drug store; Ham becomes a professional wrestler: "The Great Hambino"; DeNunez plays triple-A baseball, but later owns a business, and coaches his sons' Little League team: The Heaters; and Benny earns the nickname "the Jet" after word spreads around about his encounter with the Beast.
As an adult, Smalls becomes a sports commentator and remains friends with Benny, now a player for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Performing the play-by-play for a Dodgers game, Smalls cheers Benny on as he steals home to win the game, and they give each other the same thumbs-up sign they have shared since childhood. In Smalls' dugout, he owns, and keeps on display: the chewed-up Babe Ruth autographed ball, the Murderer's Row ball, the forged Babe Ruth ball, some of Bill's pictures of Babe Ruth, and a large picture of the Sandlot kids from 1962.
Reception
Critical response
The Sandlot received generally positive reviews upon release. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 65% based on 62 reviews, with an average rating of 6.10/10. The site's critical consensus read: "It may be shamelessly derivative and overly nostalgic, but The Sandlot is nevertheless a genuinely sweet and funny coming-of-age adventure". [6] Metacritic assigned the film had a weighted average score of 55 based on 27 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [7] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. [8]
Critic Roger Ebert gave the film three stars, comparing the film to a summertime version of A Christmas Story , based on the tone and narration of both films: "There was a moment in the film when Rodriguez hit a line drive directly at the pitcher's mound, and I ducked and held up my mitt, and then I realized I didn't have a mitt, and it was then I also realized how completely this movie had seduced me with its memories of what really matters when you are 12". [9] Bob Cannon of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B+, praising its simplicity and strong fundamentals. [10]
Leonard Klady of Variety gave the film a mostly negative review. He praised the cinematography and score, but felt the baseball team did not come together, and that the film, while sincere, was a "remarkably shallow wade, rife with incident and slim on substance". [11]
Box office
The film grossed $4,000,000 in its opening week-end and a further $32,000,000 through ticket sales. Figures for world-wide VHS and DVD sales are estimated to be at $76,000,000. Since its release on both VHS and DVD, the film has become a cult favorite. [3]
Defamation suit
In 1998, Michael Polydoros sued 20th Century Fox and the producers of the film for defamation. Polydoros, a childhood classmate of David Mickey Evans, the writer and director of The Sandlot, claimed that the character Michael "Squints" Palledorous was derogatory and caused him shame and humiliation. The trial court found in favor of the film-makers, and that finding was affirmed by the California Court of Appeal. [12] After initially agreeing to review the case in 1998, [13] the Supreme Court of California reversed its decision, dismissing the review and reinstating the Court of Appeal's opinion in favor of 20th Century Fox. [14] [15]
In 1993, The Sandlot first came to home video in a slipcase, along with the LaserDisc in widescreen, but later came in a clam shell case in 1994. On January 29, 2002, the DVD was released under Fox's Family Feature banner, in widescreen (Side B) and full screen (Side A); the 2013 repackaged DVD is widescreen only. The film was released on Blu-ray for the first time in March 2013 to celebrate its 20th anniversary. [16] The film then had a re-release on Blu-ray and Digital HD on March 27, 2018, as part of the film's 25th anniversary. [17]
