Yankees Editorial: Ranking My Favorite Baseball Movies of All-Time

Mandatory Credit: stlsportspage.com

#7. The Sandlot (1993)

I’ll be honest, I thought The Sandlot was a cute kids’ movie about baseball. I watched it maybe a half dozen times in the 15 or so years prior to my children being born. Since? It’s become a weekly staple of the Brost children’s baseball movie rotation, along with the animated movie, Everyone’s Hero, the final piece from Christopher and Dana Reeve before each passed away. I’ve fallen in love with The Sandlot so much, that one of my favorite t-shirts is a big picture of Ham Porter with the words “You’re Killin’ Me Smalls!” It still gets a chuckle out of folks I see around town.

You know the story by now. Kid moves to suburban Los Angeles in the early 1960s, doesn’t know anyone, and has zero clue how to play baseball. I can personally relate somewhat, as I was the new kid in a new town, with a month of the school year left to go. Fortunately for me, I did know how to play baseball, along with many other sports, but like little Scotty Smalls, this allowed me to make friends quite quickly–friends that I consider brothers to this day.

The story is predicable, but it’s fun to see the gang getting into trouble, not serious trouble, but acceptable boys will be boys type of trouble. Their summer days and nights were dominated by the baseball diamond, and as a result, a bond was built among the eight of them. Like in real life, people always go their separate ways, but the memories of childhood summers playing the greatest game on Earth, makes this one of my top 10 favorite flicks. Just like with most classic films, The Sandlot spawned two additional movies, the first was a shade above par, the second was forgettable to say the least.