What is it that we like about sports movies? Is it the emotional engagement of competition? The thrill of seeing an underdog win against the odds? There are many films that show that this is what sports can often be about, but there are also those that just are built around hanging out. Of all the many sports stories, there are none that manage to make the most of this quite like 1993’s The Sandlot. Not just one of the great coming-of-age stories, it is also an enduring cult favorite that spawned a series of far less successful direct-to-video sequels that couldn't quite bring to life the magic of the original. It is more than a bit rough around the edges, but that suits it just fine as it is as scrappy as the kids at its center. Though there are a lot of 90s sports movies about growing up, this one remains the absolute best for a reason.

It centers on Tom Guiry's Scotty Smalls, an endearingly dorky yet lonely kid who has moved to the San Fernando Valley where he doesn’t know anyone. Just when it seems like he won't have any friends for the summer, he meets Mike Vitar's charismatic Benny 'The Jet' Rodriguez who introduces him to a group of kids who go play baseball every day. It is there that Smalls, as the other kids call him, finds both friendship and a whole lot of shenanigans. He doesn’t initially even know how to play baseball, bringing with him a toy glove as opposed to a real one, and it takes a bit for him to really feel comfortable. Slowly but surely, over the course of the summer of 1962, Smalls begins to open up to his newfound friends. They catch fireworks on the 4th of July, get in trouble at the local pool, and, in what is the main attraction of the whole experience, end up having to face down an opponent none of them could have expected.

Babe Ruth, played by Art LaFleur, with his arm around Benny, played by Mike Vitar in The Sandlot
Image via 20th Century Studios

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When they lose a ball by hitting it over the fence where none of them go, Smalls thought he could bring them one to use from his stepfather’s collection. Unaware that it was actually one of the most valuable baseballs of all time that was signed by the legend of the sport Babe Ruth, he kicks off a crisis that will get more and more ridiculous when that too is hit over the fence. The reason this is a problem is that there is an enormous dog who is the stuff of local legend for how deadly it is. The kids then band together to try to get it back, rallying around Smalls who was once an outsider but has now become one of them. There are plenty of perfunctory elements to the film’s buildup as it often gets sidetracked in diversions that lack the fun that is found in the finale. However, it is this conclusion which is tightly written and sharply funny as it paints a portrait of youth that is sentimental without ever being superficial.

The Sandlot is a film that lives in the details, capturing what it means to grow up with both accuracy and love for all adolescence has to offer. All of the kids are goofballs at the height of immaturity, often resorting to juvenile humor as a way to bond, but it is this that makes them uniquely able to face down this problem of the lost signed baseball. It is the youthful spirit of their plans which captures their distinctly harebrained way of thinking outside the box. With each off-the-wall scheme, we come to understand just how silly all of these kids really are. It is a profile of youth in the best way with each ratcheting up of the chaos that makes it all really shine.

Though it is suggested that they could just go over, knock at the door of the resident whose yard the ball landed in, and ask for it back, that would be a very boring movie indeed. The joy of it all comes as they push things further and further in an attempt to get it themselves. No matter how many times they fail, there is just part of you that can’t help thinking this will be the moment they succeed. The creativity to their solutions makes them all the more comedic as it revels in using whatever tools are available. When each blows up in their face, with the dog destroying absolutely anything and everything that comes across the fence, it just makes you completely wrapped up in whatever ridiculous idea that they will come up with next.

All the boys of The Sandlot standing together
Image via 20th Century Fox

This culminates in a sequence where all this is tossed out the window in magnificent fashion. Is it a bit cheesy? Oh yeah. Does it still manage to win you over? Absolutely. The sappiness and the silliness of it all is what comes together to become something spectacular. It won’t be for everyone, especially when it just can’t help itself from falling into nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, but the way it taps into the aimlessness of one youthful summer still carries with it an eternal sense of joy. The way it all wraps back around, showing how it was that the bond between Smalls and Rodriguez extended across time, really hits home. Even as someone who can be rather cynical of looking back on the past through such rose-tinted glasses, the texture to it all makes it cut just deep enough to carry you along for each new twist in the ride.

The excitement you hear in their young voices as they undertake this small-scale adventure and the classic lines that have been made their way into the cultural lexicon of cinema as well as baseball become infectious. For all the ways that we may outgrow some of its less engaging aspects, there is just something timeless that transcends any of its trappings. At the very least, it serves as a reminder to always have a spare baseball handy any time you go out to play in the park in case it gets taken by an absurdly enormous dog over the fence.

Rating: B+