Dip Into These Secrets About The Sandlot

Recently we found ourselves in a bit of a pickle.

How best to honor The Sandlot, 30 years after the just-shy-of-coming-of-age tale about a group of neighborhood pals who don't need anything but baseball and each other first homered over the center field fence in our hearts?

First of all, filing the film away under "1993" is a fool's errand, as it has lent itself to countless repeat viewings since the days of clamshell-encased VHS copies, the PG-rated tale offering up the same simple pleasures for the streaming generation as it did for the dial-up kids. As the Great Bambino himself said: Movies get remembered, but endlessly quotable classics never die.

Okay, we paraphrase, but it did come to us in a dream that the best way to mark this occasion was to dip into The Sandlot's history and provide as much information as possible about the making of the perfect-for-all-seasons family film.

So, enjoy these prized secrets, even if they were just signed by some lady:

Tom Guiry, who starred as brainy new kid in town Scotty Smalls, was 11 when he scored the role after six rounds of auditions. The Sandlot was the New Jersey native's professional acting debut after an agent discovered him in a local theater production of A Christmas Carol.

"It was pretty much just playing baseball, swimming, going to a carnival," Guiry told TIME in 2013. "For an 11-year-old, you really couldn't ask for a better movie to be in. It was like summer camp."

Incidentally, the coach on set taught Guiry how not to play ball, because in reality he was far more athletic than Smalls. "They coached me a lot on how to look like I didn't know how to throw," he said. "I know my Little League coach was pretty upset when he saw the movie."

While we can't picture anyone behind the plate other than Patrick Renna, who played trash-talking catcher Hamilton "Ham" Porter, he was actually the last of the kids to join the lineup.

"It took a little getting used to because I was jumping in on a team already formed," Renna told E! News in 2018. "But we all became quick friends."

They practiced playing baseball together every day for about a month in Los Angeles, which, the now 44-year-old father of two said, "I thought was a really smart way of getting us together and forming even more of a friendship before we headed out to Salt Lake. So when we got to Salt Lake City, we had already spent a couple months together and we were just like best friends."

Denis Leary, who played Smalls' stepdad Bill, had no idea what he was signing up for—in a good way.

Demolition Man and Judgment Night—the biggest movies he'd shot to date—hadn't come out yet when he got the call about "this little baseball movie," the Rescue Me star recalled on The Rich Eisen Show in 2021. "I got the script and I was like, 'Wow, this is literally about a bunch of kids playing baseball.'"

But being a sports guy who cried watching Field of Dreams, Leary took the part against his better judgment. "They always tell you," he cracked, "you don't work with dogs and kids, and I'm working with a giant dog and all kids."

But these young actors were "really fantastic, Leary recalled, though for him, meeting screen legend James Earl Jones—who played not-so-scary sandlot neighbor and former ballplayer Mr. Mertle—took the cake. He was "the kindest, nicest, sweetest guy," Leary said. "And that voice...When I think of the voice of God I think of James Earl Jones." 

The kids, naturally, thought of Star Wars. "When he showed up, we were like, "[Darth] Vader is here!" Guiry recalled of seeing Jones for the first time. And once again the elder actor won rave reviews for being "such a nice guy."

Leary remembered that Mike Vitar, who played baseball phenom Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez, was always off "flirting with my son's sister" in between takes—meaning his onscreen son played by Guiry, whose real-life big sister was apparently hanging out on set. 

"So I was like, 'This kid's the one who's on the ball,'" Leary said, laughing.

Seems to have just been a summer fling, though: Vitar, 44, has reportedly been married to wife Kym Allen since 2007 and they have three children.

The key role of Hercules—the giant dog dubbed "The Beast" that the kids spend all summer fearing, but which of course turns out to be a sweetheart—was played by two English Mastiffs, though it was primarily one named Gunner that did all the running, chasing and jumping.

To entice Hercules to so generously thank Smalls for saving him after Benny managed to out-jet the dog in a highspeed foot chase, they smeared "like a whole jar of Gerber baby food" on the side of Guiry's face, the actor told TIME. "So that scene where I'm looking to the side, the other half of me is just slathered in this baby goo. That dog had a field day on my face. I'm a dog-lover though, so it didn't really bother me."

However, it was a puppet fashioned by animatronics designer Rick Lazzarini that you see when The Beast springs out of nowhere to snatch the ball that Scotty's erector set came oh-so-close to flinging out of Mr. Mertle's yard.

Karen Allen, who played Smalls' mom (literally, her character is just "Mom"), thought the movie was "totally cute," the actress told AV Club in 2016, but it may as well have been Cujo as far as her then-2-year-old son Nicholas was concerned.

"It scared the crap out of him," Allen recalled. "I was at the opening of it, and he started to scream. The first time the dog showed up—they're afraid of what's behind the fence—he got totally freaked out." But though her boy was "not quite of the right age," she continued, "kids who were maybe 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 really connected with that film. No, I didn't have a clue that it was such a big hit. At all. But I have now become aware of that. It's sort of sweet, actually."

The vomit the kids are covered in after their attempt to chew tobacco (as big leaguers so often did) and ride the Trabant at the same time backfired, rather literally, on them, was "chicken soup mixed with…something else," Marty York, who played Yeah-Yeah, told E!. "They basically took buckets of the stuff and threw it on us. We had to keep it on our clothes for hours on end. I literally kept almost gagging because it was on my clothing. The carnival ride was fun to ride, but the throw up on us was gross."

The "tobacco" was pretty nasty, too: "Licorice and bacon bits," Guiry told TIME. "I think some of us were stupid enough to swallow it."

Hence not all of the vomit expelled that day being fake. "We had to go on that ride about 15 times and I think me, Ham and Chauncey all threw up a few times," Guiry said. "At first it was like, 'This isn't so bad.' But by the 15th go-round, it was like, 'This is getting a little uhhhhh…'"

It took about a dozen takes for Ham to make Smalls' first-ever s'more just so—not because Renna's mallow-roasting skills were lacking, Guiry assured, but because they were a bunch of kids who were easily amused.

"It was a lot of fun filming that scene," Guiry told TIME. "But I remember we were cracking up during it. Patrick was hilarious, and we did, like, 12 takes to get the master shot. It must have been difficult to work with kids. It's one thing, when adults get the giggles, but when kids get them, it could be an hour before they snap out of it."

It got so hot on some days, the kids really would have been much happier to wear their mamas' bras than to keep playing ball.

"I remember one scene, where we had to do a lot of running and I didn't even know I was going down, but I smashed right into the Steadicam guy," Guiry told TIME. "But it was like 105 degrees and it wasn't that humid, so you don't really feel it right away, but you heat up pretty quick—especially when you're running around in 1960s clothes."

Chauncey Leopardi, who played brazen little Squints, was truly amazed after a couple of kids credited the CPR moves they'd learned from watching The Sandlot for their quick thinking when their dad passed out in the pool.

"That's just incredible," Leopardi told TODAY in August 2022 after the feel-good story went viral. "To be the force that helped them do that for their father, you know, I'll never forget it."

Asked how he felt ahead of Squints' big scene with Wendy Peffercorn (Marley Shelton), the father of three told the San Antonio Current in 2018, "I was an 11-year-old kid, so I'm sure I was anxious and excited and nervous and had all types of feelings."

Reflecting on his character's naughty move—he tricks lifeguard Wendy into giving him mouth-to-mouth so he can steal a kiss—Leopardi concluded, "It should be behavior that is frowned upon at any time. But I think the movie was very wholesome even though it was kind of risqué. Obviously, it's not what you want to teach your children, but it wasn't meant to be creepy in any way either."

The Sandlot director and co-writer David Mickey Evans was also the narrator, providing the voice of a grown-up Smalls reflecting on that momentous childhood summer. However, when you actually see adult Smalls, who's become an announcer for the Los Angeles Dodgers, he's played by Arliss Howard.

And that was Vitar's older brother Pablo Vitar who played professional ball player Benny "the Jet," who may have lost a step or two but still triumphantly steals home. Sadly, Pablo—who was a cop in real life—died of colon cancer in 2008 at the age of 41.

Campouts were few and far between as the years went by (Guiry lamented having lost touch with everyone in 2013), but as the 25th anniversary of The Sandlot approached—commemorated by a TODAY show reunion in April 2018—a cast group text got going and it stuck.

"We all keep in contact and hang out," Guiry said on the Below the Belt Show that October. "It was really a blessing to be in a film where, I mean, everybody really got along. We're childhood friends and it's just a blast getting back together with everybody."

That group chat was still buzzing in 2020, Renna telling E! News that, after the reunion, "We fell right back into that old friendship we had."

While smaller reunions had occurred over the years, including a gathering at the original Utah set in 2013, the TODAY show managed to reunite eight of the nine stars for the first time on the field at L.A. City College—minus only Vitar, who retired from acting in the 1990s and became a firefighter.

"We gotta do the documentary," Renna quipped, "it's called Finding Benny."

But, we're happy to report that no one from the cast got really into the '00s and was never seen again. (Grant Gelt, who played Bertram, was also present and accounted for.) 

"Every time someone comes up, it's just yet another time where you realize the impact it's had on people," Renna told E! in 2020 after the cast had teamed for a virtual reunion to benefit then-L.A. Dodger Justin Turner's eponymous foundation. And, sometimes, Renna would go up to the people—such as when he and Guiry crossed paths with a guy wearing a "You're killin' me, Smalls!" T-shirt.

"I think Tom and I kinda creeped him out for a second because I just called out to him, 'Hey, bud, nice shirt,'" Renna said. "And then we got closer and then we sort of switched sides and started walking backwards away from each other and he just had no idea. And then when we started taking the photo, I think he started to realize."

Guiry said on Below the Belt that hearing the famous phrase—he having played Smalls, after all—got on his nerves a bit in high school, but over the years it had become "endearing." 

Now 41 and a dad of two, he called the enduring popularity of the film "surreal," remembering a father-son duo who showed up at a fan signing dressed as Benny and Squints. "So you see the generations of people who are watching the movie and digging it," he said. "It makes you feel really great." 

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