Baseball Movie Month: The Sandlot
This January, the Cubs DNA team is taking a closer look at baseball movies: picking the classics, unearthing some overlooked titles, debating top flicks, and making recommendations. January is a slow month for baseball, so let's bridge the gap with baseball movie month.
Today, we discuss The Sandlot. Released in 1993, it's about a bunch of kids in the 1960s who love to play baseball. When one of them loses a baseball signed by the one and only Babe Ruth.
Pronk:
The Sandlot is among the best baseball movies. Combining adolescence with nostalgia, it is a soulful story about a kid enjoying childhood. It's my third favorite baseball movie of all time. As a kid who screwed up plenty and just wanted to play baseball, it resonates with me deeply.
It's a very funny movie. Typically one good laugh per scene. Tons of great one liners too. Sandlot is very quotable, and full of humor. Arguably, there aren't any funnier baseball movies out there.
Rewatching again now, there's a surprisingly little amount of baseball for such a baseball centric movie. Yes, the plot revolves entirely around the game. But really, a good half the movie is the sandlot gang messing around at the pool or eating s'mores. But that's okay. Baseball becomes a fabric that weaves everything all together. Much like how it keeps our world spinning.
It's one of my favorites. I loved it when I was a kid, and I still love it now. When I was a kid, I could empathize with the gang. Now that I'm older, I can just laugh at the stupid things 12 year old Pronk would do. I give it a 8/10. It's a simple movie, but it works well.
Trivia:
• Benny Rodriguez is played by two brothers. The younger teenage Benny is played by Mike Vitar, and his real life older brother Pablo played professional baseball player Benny at the end of the movie.
• Writer and Director David Mickey Evans also narrates the movie.
• James Earl Jones claims to have played with Babe Ruth, even though the color barrier was fully present during Ruth's era. Negro League players would occasionally barnstorm with MLB players, meaning that it actually could have happened.