re: Over analyzing "The Sandlot"

Great thread. My thoughts..

Smalls was smart, but was a social retard. Thus not knowing about Smores and Babe Ruth. But at the same time, he learned about them in the moment. Once he ate a Smore, he knew what it was (even though it took a while to grasp). Once everybody told him about Babe Ruth, he realized that he was a (the) great baseball player. So he didn't need to go research after that.

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If anyone had a legit shot with Wendy Peffercorn, it would have been Benny, not Squints.

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No way. Squints had balls, and Wendy respected that (enough to marry him later). Squints =

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How could they play an honest game against the Little League team without one umpire? Ham was getting to call the strikes behind home plate? I don't think so.

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You've never played playground baseball before? Growing up, we played baseball constantly, and never had umpires outside of Little League. You called balls/strikes/outs, and if there was a dispute, you either argued until you got your way, or you did the play over.

I would have been pissed had they had real umpires for a playground game.

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Taking a ball that rest on a mantle? come on.

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That always bothered me a lot. He's definitely smart enough to know that a ball sitting on the mantle has to be important. Especially when it's got someone's autograph on it.

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How could they spend all that time next door to Mr. Myrtle's house and NEVER see the man? In all those years? I know the guy was blind but he had to have stepped out for some fresh air every now and then.

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It's all part of legends and myths as kids. I went to daycare for most of my childhood, and we played every day in the ginormous back yard. Baseball, basketball, football, etc. And the old man that lived next door..we all thought he was a creepy hermit who was out to pop any balls that went over the fence (he definitely did that several times though). We all basically thought he was evil and out to get us, even though we practically neveer even saw him...it's just kids being kids and hyping shite up to each other. In actuality, he was likely just a retired dude who watched TV all day and got tired of balls ending up in his yard.

It's just like the Beast. In Squints's story, the beast was like a ten foot tall giant monster, but in the end, he was just a regular sweet dog. Kids and their stories are always overhyped. That's the point IMO.

I will say, though, that's it's odd that nobody (or their parents) ever knew that someone famous (famous enough) lived there. I mean, dude was a MLB player who played with the greats and was on a first name basis with Babe Ruth.

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I always wondered what happened to Bertram. At the end the narrator says "Bertram got really into the 60s and no one ever saw him again." What the hell happened to him?

Also the actor who played Bertram, Grant Gelt, the last movie he was in was "The 60s" in '99

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That's awesome.

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Furthermore, why was their tree house right over Mr. Myrtle/The Sandlot property? The Sandlot was public city domain which could have meant free reign for any kids to just post up in that treehouse and call it their own.

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My friend nad I built a treehouse in a huge tree around his neighborhood. Wasn't their property. That kinda thing isn't uncommon at all. Plus, it makes sense to build it there since that's where they all congregated every day.

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"Hey, is that your sister out there in left field... Naked?"

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Think she'd go out with me?

Best part is the first pitch down the pipe and Ham just laughs at the batter. I always was aggravated at the fact that just about everyone on Phillips's team swung at pitches that were about 6 feet high. Made me question DeNunez's pitching skills.

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1. Why didn't Yeah-Yeah just throw the godforsaken ball over the fence back into the sandlot as soon as he grabbed it? And if the guys knew he was a babbling spaz, why even send him over in the first place? I mean, Timmy was a pretty logical cat. Why didn't they send him over?

2. As a future major leaguer, what in the hell was Benny looking at when he opened his gate and sprinted backwards all the way to the house after the catapult launched the baseball? Seriously, the beast caught the ball on its way down at the fence. He definitely didn't make it to the bigs as an outfielder.

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Both good questions. YeahYeah dropping the ball is frustrating. And so was the launch of the ball that the Beast jumped up and caught.

But all of that was necessary to advance the plot of (IMO) the best sports movie of all time. It's all a buildup to the end, and all the shite tehy try makes the end so much more awesome when JEJ is like "Why didn't you just come over and kncok on the door? I'd have gotten it for you.." Also, this thread reminds me that I now have my 5th movie for my "Top 5 movies" list in that thread from a week or two ago.