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The Sandlot - Trailer (1993) 2:25
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Scotty Smalls (Tom Guiry) moves to a new neighborhood with his mom and stepdad, and wants to learn to play baseball. The neighborhood baseball guru Rodriguez (Mike Vitar) takes Smalls under his wing, and soon he's part of the local baseball buddies. They fall into adventures involving baseball, treehouse sleep-ins, the desirous lifeguard at the local pool, the snooty rival ball team, and the travelling fair. Beyond the fence at the back of the sandlot, menaces a legendary ball-eating dog called The Beast, and the kids inevitably must deal with him.
- news.com.au
- 11 Nov 2014
- Entertainment
Cast members from The Sandlot Kids. Source: News Corp Australia
“YOU’RE killin me Smalls!”
If you recognise that line, it means you’ve been lucky enough to watch The Sandlot Kids, a classic movie about a group of youngsters who were all obsessed with baseball.
If you loved the film as much as I did, I’m sure you’ll be interested in these little known facts about the 1993 film:
Cast: Brandon Adams as Kenny DeNunez, Chauncey Leopardi as Squints, Marty York as Yeah-Yeah, Mike Vitar as Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez and Grant Gelt as Bertram Grover Weeks. Source: Getty Images
Forced friendship: The director really wanted the friendship between Scotty Smalls and Benny Rodriguez to seem genuine, so he made the two actors start rehearsing together for a few weeks before the other kids even arrived on set.
Hot filming conditions: The movie was filmed in Utah and the warm weather made things pretty uncomfortable for the young cast.
“I remember one scene, where we had to do a lot of running and I didn’t even know I was going down, but I smashed right into the Steadicam guy,” said Tom Guiry, who played Scotty Smalls.
“But it was like 105 degrees (40 degrees celsius) and it wasn’t that humid, so you don’t really feel it right away, but you heat up pretty quick, especially when you’re running around in 1960s clothes.”
Guiry in 2008. Source: Getty Images
Tom Guiry as Scotty Smalls. Source: YouTube
The nickname stuck: Tom Guiry can’t escape the movie. He still gets called Smalls and people always come up to him and quote back the famous line, “You’re killin’ me Smalls!”
“I work in a hospital as a patient transporter to make ends meet for my three kids,” Guiry said to the Huffington Post last year.
“I think about four or five times a day, I have someone say that to me ... A lot of my friends call me Smalls, I go by it. I’ve come to kind of embrace it. If you can’t beat ‘em, just join ‘em, you know?”
The nerdy rapper: Remember Squints, the glasses wearing character who kept repeating “FOR — EV — ER”? Even though he played a total nerd in the film, he was completely different in real life according to Tom Guiry.
“He was nothing like his character,” he said to Time.
“He was into gangster rap. He’d wear the nerdiest clothes and the thick glasses [as Squints] and as soon as they would call ‘wrap,’ he’d be in humungous jeans down to his knees and a backwards hat.”
Squints aka Chauncey Leopardi last year. Source: Getty Images
Squints. Source: YouTube
The scene that took forever: It’s one of the movie’s most memorable scenes, when Ham (played by Patrick Renna) teaches Smalls (played by Tom Guiry) how to make s’mores.
“It was a lot of fun filming that scene,” said Guiry, “But I remember we were cracking up during it.
“Patrick was hilarious, and we did, like, 12 takes to get the master shot. It must have been difficult to work with kids. It’s one thing, when adults get the giggles, but when kids get them, it could be an hour before they snap out of it.”
S'mores
Movie tricks: Remember when Scotty Smalls freed the huge dog aka The Beast aka Hercules from under the fallen fence? The young lad is thanked by the dog with some very vigorous face-licking.
“They put like a whole jar of ... baby food on the side of my face,” said Guiry.
“So that scene where I’m looking to the side, the other half of me is just slathered in this baby goo. That dog had a field day on my face. I’m a dog-lover though, so it didn’t really bother me.”
Hercules was an English Mastiff. Source: Supplied
Where are they now?:
Tom Guiry who played Scotty Smalls is still acting as well as working in a hospital. He appeared in films such as Mystic River and Black Hawk Down and TV shows such as Law & Order and CSI: Miami.
Mike Vitar, who played Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez, appeared in Mighty Ducks 2 and Mighty Ducks 3 before quitting acting in the late 1990s. He’s now a firefighter in Los Angeles.
Patrick Renna, who played Hamilton ‘Ham’ Porter, is still acting and has appeared in TV shows such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Bones.
Chauncey Leopardi, who played Michael ‘Squints’ Palledorous, was a professional poker player but now works at an air-filtration company.
Marley Shelton, who played Wendy Peffercorn, is also still acting and has appeared in Sin City and Mad Men.
Wendy Peffercorn aka Marley Shelton now. Source: Getty Images
Wendy Peffercorn then. Source: YouTube
