My “Feel Good” Movie

My Feel Good Movie

Cameron Bailes, Editor

The Sandlot is an All-Time great movie for baseball players and just kids growing up. This movie came out in 1993 but was set back in the summer of 1962. When a nerdy 5th grader Scotty Smalls moves to the San Fernando Valley suburbs, where he had trouble making new friends. This is until he meets the kids from The Sandlot, and slowly becomes friends with them and all while being mentored by Benny “the Jet” Rodriguez. This movie is a classic and it shows how kids used to be and now all kids care about is being at home and playing video games.

In one game Hamilton “Ham” Porter hits a ball into a backyard where “the Beast” lives along with Mr. Mertle. As Smalls tries to jump the fence to get the ball, he is dragged down by all of his teammates as they tell him about “the Beast” and how every ball that goes back there never gets recovered. One hot summer day the boys decide to take the day off of baseball and go to the neighborhood pool where Michael “Squints” Palledorous fakes drowning so his crush and much older lifeguard Wendy Peffercorn would give Squints mouth-to-mouth and then he kisses her. This resulted in all of the boys getting kicked out and banned from the pool. On the 4th of July all the kids gather at The Sandlot, where they play a game under the lights of the fireworks and it shows how the kids don’t have anything to worry about, but just being themselves. Later in the movie, they are challenged to a game against their Little League rivals in which they demolish them, and they go out to celebrate and trying chewing tobacco while riding a spinning carnival ride, which leads them to puke all over themselves and everyone around.

There is more to this movie such as Smalls hitting a signed Babe Ruth ball over the fence into “the Beasts” yard and they try everything they could to get the ball out from the backyard. Then eventually Benny gets in a “pickle” with the dog which leads to them running around the entire neighborhood crashing through movies and jumping through parties and overall leads them back to the Sandlot. After this, they meet Mr. Mertle who trades a signed baseball signed by the 1927 New York Yankees. This whole movie shows how much easier life was back then and kids not having to worry about anything and actually enjoying being outside with each other. This movie is one of my all-time favorites because I grew up watching this movie thinking about how fun it would be to be with all of your friends doing something that everyone enjoys.