The Sandlot (1993) * *

Directed by:  David Mickey Evans

Starring:  Tom Guiry, Mike Vitar, Patrick Renna, Denis Leary, Karen Allen, Art Lafleur, James Earl Jones, Chauncy Leopardi

I hate to sound like a churl, but here goes.    Maybe in my youth, I would've appreciated The Sandlot more than I do now.    It was released in 1993, when I was in my early 20s, so even then I wasn't the target audience.     It captures summer days, which was the reward school kids trudged through the school year to get to, with the proper nostalgia.    You can feel the heat pounding on the kids as they play baseball on the sandlot of the title.    It's innocuous, but rather dull.   Kids would like it, even if the idea of going out and playing baseball on a warm summer day may seem foreign to them in the age of video games and cell phones.

We meet nine boys in a small town in 1962 who shag fly balls, hit homers, and in some cases knock the cover off the ball at the local sandlot.     Some of the balls manage to land in the yard of Mr. Mertle (Jones), which is guarded by (as legend would have it), a terrible half-dog monster which eats baseballs and any kids who dared to try and enter the yard to get the balls back.     When a baseball signed by Babe Ruth owned by one of the boys' stepfather finds its way into Mr. Mertle's yard, then they try all kinds of creative ways to get it back before the creature eats it.

The boys are led by Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez (Vitar) and the story is told from the point of view of Scott Smalls (Guiry), courtesy of rather leaden voiceover narration by The Sandlot's writer and director David Mickey Evans.    Benny "The Jet" as he is called, is the only one who would go on to play baseball professionally and he is clearly the best player.   Smalls is clearly the worst, at first, but with The Jet's encouragement, he learns to catch a ball and hit a little.    The rest of the boys have their moments to shine, but I confess they didn't make much of an impact.    Maybe the movie had too many characters to juggle and some got shortchanged. 

No points for guessing whether The Jet gets Smalls' ball back, or whether they realize both the dog and Mr. Mertle were misunderstood, and whether Mr. Mertle would himself be a former ballplayer who played alongside (drum roll) Babe Ruth.    The Sandlot sidesteps basic baseball history facts such as the existence of the Negro Leagues and how Jackie Robinson didn't break the color barrier until 1947, so how Babe Ruth and Mr. Mertle ever played together is a mystery.  

The Sandlot is not about historical accuracy, but capturing the spirit of youth and how playing baseball was indeed the national pastime for pre-teen boys.    The era of The Sandlot is unlikely to come again, and while I appreciated the film's feel for its time and place, I just found myself not caring all that much.