49 Fun Facts About The Sandlot

Who directed The Sandlot and also narrated it as the grown-up Smalls?

David Mickey Evans had been replaced as director of Radio Flyer, another script of his, so The Sandlot became his directing debut; his narration as the adult Smalls goes uncredited.

The Sandlot's narrator recalls 1962 as the summer which speedster broke baseball's stolen-base record?

Maury Wills stole 104 bases that year to pass Ty Cobb's 1915 record of 96, and the narrator reckons a summer that incredible should have started well for him, but it didn't.

Which part of the Los Angeles area is The Sandlot set in?

The San Fernando Valley is only ever 'the Valley' in the narration, and Roger Ebert's review went further and placed the film in 'a small American town'.

In which state was The Sandlot, set in California, actually filmed?

Utah. Shooting began in Salt Lake City in June 1992 on a script first called The Boys of Summer, a title reportedly dropped to avoid confusion with Roger Kahn's baseball book of that name.

Which treat is Ham showing Smalls how to make when he first groans 'You're killing me, Smalls'?

S'mores baffle Smalls, who hears 'some more' and asks how he can have more of nothing; the groan that follows became the film's most quoted line.

Which actor played the new kid, Scotty Smalls, in The Sandlot?

Tom Guiry made his film debut as the kid who can't throw, then grew into far grimmer films, among them the war drama Black Hawk Down and the crime drama Mystic River.

In The Sandlot, what are Benny Rodriguez's full first and middle names?

Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez is the team's best player and the only one who doesn't laugh at Smalls: he invites him to play, teaches him to catch and tells him to keep the glove.

In The Sandlot, which position does Hamilton 'Ham' Porter play?

Catcher. Crouched behind the plate, Ham needles every rival batter with insults between pitches until they swing and miss.

Which actor played the bespectacled Squints in The Sandlot?

Chauncey Leopardi came back 14 years later as a grown-up Squints, helping to coach a new set of kids in the sequel The Sandlot: Heading Home.

In The Sandlot, how does Squints get himself kissed by the lifeguard at the public pool?

He fakes drowning in the deep end, though he can't swim, and steals a kiss during the rescue; the boys are banned from the pool for good, but she smiles at him whenever they pass.

Which actress played the lifeguard, Wendy Peffercorn, in The Sandlot?

Marley Shelton, billed as 'Marlee' in the credits, plays the lifeguard whose 'lotioning, oiling, oiling, lotioning' Squints has watched every summer until, the narrator says, it becomes too much for him.

In The Sandlot's epilogue, what happens between Squints and the lifeguard?

They marry and have nine children, the narrator reports, and the pair buy Vincent's Drugstore, which they still own when he tells the story.

In The Sandlot, what breed is the dog the boys call the Beast?

English Mastiff. For most of the film the Beast is a towering puppet, the monster the boys imagine, and only when one of them finally faces him does a real, ordinary-sized dog appear.

In The Sandlot, what is the Beast's real name?

Hercules. The director borrowed the name from a real dog that bit his younger brother as the boy went after a lost baseball, the childhood incident that inspired the story.

Which actor plays Mr. Mertle, the blind former ballplayer behind the fence in The Sandlot?

James Earl Jones, by then famous as the voice of Darth Vader, came back to play Mr. Mertle once more in the direct-to-video sequel The Sandlot 2.

Which comedian plays Bill, Smalls's stepfather, in The Sandlot?

Denis Leary's Bill promises to teach Smalls to play catch and keeps putting it off; when the lesson finally comes, the boy takes the ball in the face and ends up with a black eye.

In The Sandlot, what does Smalls do with his stepfather's prized ball?

Hits his first home run with it: the ball sails into the Beast's yard, and only then do the others tell him whose signature he has just lost.

In The Sandlot, what nickname does Benny earn after the Beast chases him through town?

The Jet. Word that he had outrun the Beast spread all over the neighbourhood and the name stuck: years later a stadium announcer is still introducing him by it.

In The Sandlot's epilogue, which team does the grown-up Benny play for?

The Los Angeles Dodgers send Benny in as a pinch runner while Smalls calls the game from the booth; in 2018 the real club hosted the cast's 25th-anniversary reunion at Dodger Stadium.

Which sneakers does Benny lace up before going over the fence to face the Beast in The Sandlot?

PF Flyers. The narrator's promise that they make a kid 'run faster and jump higher' borrows the brand's real mid-century advertising slogan.

In The Sandlot, Mr. Mertle swaps the boys' chewed-up ball for one signed by which famous line-up?

The 1927 Murderers' Row signed it, Babe Ruth included, and Bill loves the new ball, but he still grounds Smalls for a week for taking the first one and ruining it.

In The Sandlot's final scene, how does the grown-up Benny win the game?

He steals home. Sent in as a pinch runner who is said to have lost a step or two, Benny takes a huge lead and slides in safe while Smalls shouts the call from the booth.

Which claim was among those Michael Polydoros, a schoolmate of The Sandlot's director, brought over the character Squints?

Defamation was one of four claims he filed in 1994, saying Squints Palledorous took his name and boyhood look; California's courts ruled the film plainly fiction and found for its makers.

How did Roger Ebert's review of The Sandlot describe the film?

A summertime A Christmas Story, he wrote, because both films watch gawky kids through a haze of memory; he admitted ducking in his seat when a line drive came off the screen.

What makes the Sandlot boys sick on a fairground ride after their win over the Little League team?

Chewing tobacco. One of them has been saving a plug of Big Chief for a good time, they all chew it because the pros do, and the spinning ride does the rest.

In The Sandlot, how is the team's only baseball ruined, sending Smalls home for another?

Benny knocks the cover off it with one mighty swing; with nothing left to play with, Smalls runs home for the ball in his stepfather's trophy room.

In The Sandlot, what is Kenny DeNunez known for on the mound?

His 'Heater' pitch, a fastball he dares batters to hit; it carries him as far as Triple-A ball, the closing narration says, but never to the majors.

Tommy Timmons says everything his brother Timmy has just said, earning which nickname in The Sandlot?

Repeat. He doubles his big brother's lines all summer, to cries of 'Shut up, Tommy', and the closing narration has the pair growing rich together by inventing mini-malls.

In The Sandlot's epilogue, which boy 'got really into the '60s, and no one ever saw him again'?

Bertram. Every other boy gets a job or a family in the narrator's roll call; he alone simply drops out of sight, swallowed by the counterculture.

Which actress plays Smalls's mother in The Sandlot?

Karen Allen, the heroine of Raiders of the Lost Ark, plays a mother who orders her bookish son outdoors to scrape his knees and 'get into trouble, for crying out loud'.

What do the Sandlot boys do with the 98-cent ball they buy?

Forge the autograph on it. Benny signs the ball himself, so badly that his friends wince, but he tells them Smalls's mother will never know the difference and the stand-in will buy them time.

The Sandlot's idol Babe Ruth first starred for the Boston Red Sox at which position?

Pitcher. In Boston Ruth was one of the game's best left-handers, winning 23 and then 24 games in successive seasons, but he wanted to play every day, and after his sale to the Yankees he became a full-time slugger.

Which Babe Ruth nickname do the boys shout at a baffled Smalls in The Sandlot?

The Sultan of Swat opens a barrage that runs on through the Titan of Terror, the Colossus of Clout and the King of Crash; Smalls, bluffing, says he misheard 'the Great Bambino' as 'the Great Bambi'.

What does Mr. Mertle ask of the Sandlot boys in return for his signed ball?

Weekly visits to talk baseball. When the boys say they can't accept his ball, he tells them to come by once a week and talk about the game, and they'll call it an even trade.

Besides Babe Ruth, whose signature do the boys shout out on the ball Mr. Mertle gives them in The Sandlot?

Lou Gehrig. He batted right behind Ruth in the order, and in the season Ruth hit his 60 home runs it was Gehrig who was voted the league's most valuable player.

The Sandlot opens with its narrator retelling which famous Babe Ruth moment?

His called shot. In the 1932 World Series Ruth is said to have pointed to the bleachers and homered on the next pitch, which the narrator calls the moment a hero became a legend.

Which word does Squints stretch out, syllable by syllable, in his legend of the Beast?

Forever is how long the police told Mr. Mertle to keep the Beast chained up, Squints says, and his 'for-ev-er' is the reason no boy will go over that fence after a ball.

The Sandlot's narrator says Benny got him out of the biggest what he'd ever be in?

Pickle. The word is baseball slang for a rundown, a runner trapped between bases, so the film keeps returning to it, down to Benny being said to have 'pickled' the Beast.

What stops the Beast when he chases Benny back to the sandlot?

The fence falls on him as he crashes through it, and the boys who feared him lift it off; the freed dog licks Smalls's face and leads them to his hoard of baseballs.

Which studio released The Sandlot on April 7, 1993?

20th Century Fox released the film but had lost the bidding for its script: the producers Island World won it by paying $1 million and letting the writer direct his own screenplay.

Which Boston-born actor was the last of The Sandlot's nine boys to be cast, as Ham Porter?

Patrick Renna was playing Little League in Dorchester only months earlier; newly arrived in Los Angeles, he won Ham at one of his very first auditions, reading a scene that isn't in the film.

After leaving acting in 1997, The Sandlot's Benny, Mike Vitar, took up which career in Los Angeles?

Firefighter. Vitar was spotted by a casting agent while queuing for a ride at a school carnival, acted for about five years, then walked away from Hollywood for the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Who played the grown-up Benny Rodriguez in The Sandlot's final scene?

Mike Vitar's older brother, Pablo, is billed as 'Older Benny'. The adult Smalls took two men: Arliss Howard appears on screen while the director supplies the voice.

In The Sandlot's closing narration, what does Ham Porter become as an adult?

A pro wrestler. 'You know him as the Great Hambino,' the narrator says, a ring name punning on the Great Bambino, the title the boys give their baseball idol.

In The Sandlot, how did Mr. Mertle lose his sight?

He was hit by a pitch. He crowded the plate so the strike zone all but vanished, he tells the boys, until a high fastball put the lights out on a career he says could have beaten Babe Ruth's record.

On which holiday do the Sandlot boys play their one night game of the year?

Fourth of July. The fireworks overhead give the boys just enough light for a game, and for one night they play feeling like big leaguers under the lights of a great stadium.

Which actor stars in The Sandlot: Heading Home as a ballplayer sent back to his 1976 childhood?

Luke Perry plays Tommy Santorelli, a selfish slugger who wakes from a blow to the head as his 13-year-old self; choosing his friends over glory changes the man he grows into.

A Sandlot series reuniting the original cast was in development for which streaming service before it was dropped?

Disney+ took on the project in 2019, after Disney bought the film's studio; it would have found the gang in 1984 with children of their own, but by late 2023 it was no longer in development.

Who composed The Sandlot's score, which went unreleased until a 2006 limited edition?

David Newman's score waited 13 years for a disc, and even then only part of it appeared, sharing a release with his War of the Roses music; a far longer edition followed for the film's 25th anniversary.