Baseball, a common sport that lots of people enjoy. For some people, it is playing to score a home run and win the game for your team. For others, it’s spectating with others people to see if your team will win the game. But in general, Baseball brings people together to bond over a simple common thing. But baseball has a way to change someone’s whole life. Making new friends, experiencing new things, and looking back on it all as fun memories. All of these things begin with the a baseball field that kids use to play called a “Sandlot”

Summary

The movie begins with a new announcer walking to the press box to prepare for work. He begins to reminisce on Babe Ruth’s most iconic game. Then reminisces about his old friends who taught him about baseball and who helped him out majorly. We see back into the past where Scott was a kid who was new and was bad at making friends. Later that night, Scott went to talk to his step dad about teaching how to play catch. That very afternoon, Scott rushed after school to follow the kid and his friends play baseball at the Sandlot. When he was about to try making friends with them he saw how they don’t play teams or kept score. They only played baseball to play baseball. They didn’t have a full team since there were 8 of them, so Scott thought he could join them. Before he did, Scott heard loud banging and growling coming from the other side of the fence. But while he was distracted, one of the kids named Benny hit a home run. The ball flew and hit Scott right in the face. Everyone laughs but Scott gets back up trying to get the ball back to them. Everyone is waiting for Scott to throw the ball but everyone sees that Scott cannot throw the ball right. Scott goes home to play with his invention but before it could finish, the metal ball hits his mom. Unfazed, Scott’s mom asked him if he made any friends yet. Scott’s mom tells him that all she wants is for him to go outside, make friends, and have fun. Later in the morning, Scott asked his stepdad to play catch with him and with help from his mom, he grabbed some gloves to play. His stepdad tries to teach Scott how to catch but doesn’t make any progress and results in Scott getting a black eye. Scott gets discouraged that he won’t learn how to play, Benny walks up to Scott and invites him to play baseball with them. Benny takes Scott to all his friends, Timmy, Tommy, “Squints”, “Yeah-Yeah”, Bertram, Kenny, and “Ham”. However, they don’t really like Scott for his lack of information about baseball. Benny introduces his friend to Scott and they head to the Sandlot. Even though they say Scott can’t play, Benny vouches for Scott and they begin to play. Scott has a rough start but Benny helps him through it and they start playing some ball. After everyone warms up to Scott, They give him the nickname, “Smalls”.

The next day, they start playing and Ham hits the ball over the fence. Everyone gets upset at Ham but Scott tries to get the ball. Squint sees this and everyone runs to try to stop Scott from getting the ball. Everyone tells Smalls that he could have gone killed from the Beast behind the fence. Smalls questions what that was and everyone invites him to a camp out to tell him. Smalls heads to the tree house and Squints tells him the origin of the Beast. The Beast started as a guard dog that went out of control and chained up to the junkyard. Smalls in disbelief, looks over to see the Beast and knows it’s real. In the morning, Yeah-Yeah and Squints head to the shop to get a new ball, where Squints sees his crush Wendy walk by. Yeah-Yeah drags Squints to the Sandlot to play ball but it’s too hot to play. So everyone decides to head to the pool for the day. They have some fun but Squints sees that Wendy is the lifeguard of the pool. To impress her, Squint heads to the diving board and falls to the deep end. Squints can’t swim and Wendy swims to save him. She gives him CPR but it doesn’t seem to work. Everyone panics that he might die but Squints opens his eyes and smiles at the guys. Pretending to still be unconscious, Wendy gives Squints mouth to mouth and Squints pulls her in and kisses her. However because of that Squints is kicked out and is a legend among the guys. Later, the fourth of July rolled around and the boys played baseball and looked up to the fireworks in the sky.

Later that week as the boys were playing baseball, a group of baseball boys biked to the field and challenged the boys to a game. With little effort the boy defeated the baseball boys and went to the circus to celebrate. Before they get on the rides, Bertram gives them all chewing tobacco for the ride. But because of it, everyone was feeling sick and threw up on the ride. A few days later, Smalls’ stepdad left to go out of town and Smalls left to play baseball. That day, Benny hit the ball so hard that the inside flew out and they couldn’t play. However, Smalls said he has a ball at home that belonged to his stepdad. Smalls takes the ball and goes up to bat, but he hits the ball over. Smalls freaks out that he lost the ball and says it belongs to his step dad. The guy asked where he got it but Smalls said it was signed by Babe Ruth. Everyone rushed to the fence to see it but it was too late and the ball was taken by the Beast. The guys go around and buy another ball to buy them some time until Smalls stepdad comes home. The guys come up with plan after plan to get that ball back. However each plan ended with the Beast stopping it. After all the failure, Benny has a dream with Babe Ruth talking to him. Benny realized what Babe was telling him to do. Benny was going to jump the fence and get back the ball. Benny was scared but knew what he had to do. He looked the Beast right in the eye and ran to grab the ball. Benny grabbed the ball and went back to the Sandlot but the Beast jumped the fence and chased him down across town. Benny ran as fast as he could but the Beast was relentless. Benny ran all the way back to the Sandlot and jumped the fence. The Beast chased him down but the fence fell over on the Beast. Smalls saw that the Beast was just a regular dog and with Benny’s help got the fence off the dog. The rest of the guy went across and saw that every ball they hit over there, the dog kept. Smalls knocked on the door of the owner and found out the dog’s name was Hercules. The owner was nice and gave back the signed ball. Smalls gave back the ball and had fun every summer. The guy grew older and some started to move away and live some of their best lives. But Benny still played baseball and went to the majors, where him and Smalls live their dreams of baseball.

My opinion

This movie was the best movie to show what it was like to be a kid. Hanging out with your friend in the summer or going to the pool to impress girls. Even doing the most insane things as a kid and becoming a legend. It really shows that friends can mold your life and help you when you need it. All these great messages came from a movie about kids playing baseball. This movie will always hold a memory of my childhood to me. I give this movie a 10/10.