Line #58 Characters/TheSandlot


1	!Scott Smalls
2	!!!'''Played by:''' Tom Guiry (young), Creator/ArlissHoward (adult), David Mickey Evans (narrator)
3	Scott Smalls, simply called "Smalls" by the other kids, is a boy who moved to suburban Los Angeles in 1962 with his mother and his new step-father. The crux of the first half of the film is him trying to fit in with the kids of his new neighborhood. Taken under the wing of Benny, he finds a new passion for baseball. It is his mistake of unwittingly using a ball signed by Babe Ruth (which belonged to his step-father) that drives the second half of the film.
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5	An adult Smalls also serves as TheNarrator of the film, and is revealed in the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue to be a radio commentator for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
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7	* CharacterDevelopment: Goes from barely knowing that baseball is a thing to a decent player to a successful sports commentator as an adult.
8	* CreatorCameo: His adult self is voiced by the film's director, David Mickey Evans.
9	* GadgeteerGenius: Downplayed, but he's really good with an Erector Set.
10	* LastNameBasis: To the Sandlot kids.
11	* NaiveNewcomer: Not just to the neighborhood but to the game itself. He doesn't even know who Babe Ruth is, which leads to the issue in the climax of the film.
12	* TheNewGuy: A kid that moved into the neighborhood of [[TheTeam the Sandlot team.]] He needs everything explained to him and tries to fit in. They accept him primarily to fill an empty spot.
13	* SupportingProtagonist: While it's his story, Benny's the one who gets the most spotlight and is treated as TheHero. Considering Scott's admiration of Benny, it's only fitting.
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15	!Benjamin Franklin "Benny" Rodriguez
16	!!!'''Played by:''' Mike Vitar (young), Pablo Vitar (adult, first film), Creator/DannyNucci (adult, ''Heading Home'')
17	Benny is the oldest, wisest and most mature of the Sandlot kids, and the one everyone looks up to. He is Hispanic, and a major fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers (he almost always wears a Dodgers ballcap). He is known particularly for his speed, and it comes into play when he outruns The Beast after getting Smalls' ball back in the second half.
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19	Benny is the hero of the film, next to Smalls' SupportingProtagonist. In the Epilogue, he is revealed to have become a long-time pro baseball player, and is on the Dodgers at the end of the episode. It is suggested he had a very successful career, and is nicknamed "The Jet". He appears in ''The Sandlot: Heading Home'', where he's the manager of the L.A. Dodgers.
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21	* TheAce: He's a fantastic player, a great guy in personality, and so fast [[spoiler: he can outrun The Beast.]]
22	* AscendedFanboy: The only one of the kids to end up playing in professional baseball.
23	* TheBusCameBack: Returns in ''The Sandlot: Heading Home'' as an adult (with [[TheOtherDarrin a new actor]]). In 1976, he is on a break from the major leagues and co-coaching the new sandlot team with Squints and Tommy Santorelli, while in 2007 he is managing the adult Santorelli as head of the Dodgers.
24	* TheHero: Despite Smalls being [[SupportingProtagonist the protagonist]], Benny is the one that pulls all the heroic acts throughout the movie, up to and including stealing the Babe Ruth ball from The Beast.
25	* TheLeader: The other kids might complain, but they follow his lead.
26	* OpinionChangingDream: Babe Ruth himself appears in his dream and gives him the courage to brave the Beast's yard and become a neighborhood legend.
27	* TokenMinority: The only named Hispanic character in the film.
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29	!Hamilton "Ham" Porter
30	!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/PatrickRenna
31	Ham is a bit of a snarker, and is not afraid to hurl insults or show off an inordinate amount of bravado. Although portly, he is a good power hitter on the actual team, and a home run by him (getting rid of their last ball for that day) introduces us to The Beast. He frequently tires of Smalls' naivete and lack of experience in certain things, like s'mores, frequently saying, "You're ''killing'' me, Smalls!"
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33	In the epilogue, Ham is revealed to have become a professional wrestler.
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35	* TheBigGuy: The biggest guy on TheTeam and also the first to hit a home run.
36	* CowardlyLion: He has a tendency to overreact and panic when things go wrong, as seen during the kids' many attempts to retrieve the autographed baseball from the Beast. But he also sticks around with the group and never backs away from a challenge, even if he's scared of it.
37	* CatchPhrase: "You're killing me, Smalls!"
38	* DeadpanSnarker: The CatchPhrase quote for instance, and many others.
39	%%* LargeHam: No pun intended.
40	* TrashTalk: As the catcher, he uses this to rattle batters.
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42	!Michael "Squints" Palledorous
43	!!!'''Played by:''' Chauncey Leopardi
44	Squints looks like a nerd, but is also a good baseball player and a hammy storyteller. He is also a bit of a lech, having a major crush on an older local girl, Wendy Peffercorn. He largely drives the myths surrounding The Beast. In the epilogue, he's revealed to have bought the local pharmacy, and married Wendy. They have ''nine'' children.
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46	* BabiesEverAfter: He and Wendy have enough kids together to field an entire baseball team by themselves.
47	* TheBusCameBack: Returns in ''The Sandlot: Heading Home'' as an adult, officially sponsoring and co-coaching the new sandlot team with Benny and Tommy Santorelli.
48	* HappilyMarried: As noted above, he and Wendy eventually tie the knot and get biz-zay.
49	* PrecociousCrush: He's a tween kid who's had a crush on Wendy for three years, and she's a teenager old enough to be a pool lifeguard.
50	* TheStoryteller: Because his grandfather was supposedly the one to order Mr. Mertle to chain up the Beast, he is the one to tell the story of the Beast at the campout.
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52	!Alan "[=Yeah-Yeah=]" [=McClennan=]
53	!!!'''Played by:''' Marty York
54	[=Yeah-Yeah=] is a bit of a wise-cracker, and is known for starting a lot of his sentences by saying "[=Yeah-Yeah=]", hence his nickname.
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56	* VerbalTic: A characteristic phrase he says in every sentence? Yeah-Yeah, he has one.
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58	!Kenny "The Heater" [=DeNunez=]
59	!!!'''Played by:''' Brandon Adams
60	[=DeNunez=], an African American, is the team's pitcher, and possibly the most devoted to baseball besides Benny. When he grows up, he plays minor league ball for awhile and he does inner-city little league organization.
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62	* AscendedFanboy: Partial. While not as successful as Benny he does go on to play baseball and coach little league.
63	* TheGenericGuy: He lacks any of the quirks the other kids have, and also has the fewest lines of the whole team.
64	* SignatureMove: His trademark pitch, known as 'The Heater'. As an adult, he coaches a little league team called The Heaters.
65	* TokenMinority: The only African American kid of the Sandlot gang.
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67	!Bertram Grover Weeks
68	!!!'''Played by:''' Grant Gelt
69	Bertram also has the appearance of a nerd like Squints, but is much more low-key. Has an aggressive edge, second only to Ham Porter, and has a rebellious side. In the epilogue, Smalls said he disappeared after getting "really into TheSixties".
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71	* DrugsAreBad: He brings 'Big Chief' tobacco to the celebration carnival. After everyone takes some, and goes on a spinny ride, [[VomitIndiscretionShot the result is a catastrophe]].
72	* {{Foreshadowing}}: The kid who manages to snag a controlled substance and eagerly partakes of it eventually disappears into the drug-crazed sixties.
73	* RiddleForTheAges: Bertram apparently getting "really got into the TheSixties" could mean anything. Though Smalls may have hinted Bertram never learned his lesson from the tobacco fiasco and ended up dying from a drug overdose.
74	* TheGenericGuy: Has no real defining characteristics of his own and seems to mostly be there to make up the numbers.
75	* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: What do you mean, "he got ''really in to'' TheSixties, [[TheGreatestStoryNeverTold and no one ever saw him again]]"?
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77	!Timmy and Tommy "Repeat" Timmons
78	!!!'''Played by:''' Victor [=DiMattia=] (Timmy), Shane Obedzinski (Tommy)
79	Timmy and Tommy are brothers, Timmy being the older one. Tommy is the youngest of the Sandlot kids, and frequently repeats everything Timmy says. At the end, Smalls says they become an architect and a contractor and invented the mini-mall.
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81	* HiddenDepths: Timmy proves remarkably adept at designing schemes to retrieve the baseball from the Beast's lair, devising an entire "aerial assault" via a harness. They also grow up to pioneer the concept of mini-malls.
82	* ThoseTwoGuys: They are brothers who exist as a narrative pair. Tommy doesn't do anything but repeat everything his older brother says.
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84	!The Beast
85	The Beast is an English Mastiff owned by Mr. Mertle, a blind elderly man who lives behind the Sandlot where the kids play baseball. Known by the kids as "The Beast", he greedily hoards any ball hit over the fence. Although the kids think he's mean and evil, it turns out he just likes keeping the balls and is defensive about them. Really, he turns out to be a gentle giant, and at the end he's considered their mascot.
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87	* ABeastInNameAndNature: Popularly known as "The Beast" by the local kids, believed to be genetically-altered by his equally-dreaded owner and responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people. Of course, this is nothing more than rumor and hyperbole: the "Beast" is not only harmless, but is actually a big softy and goes by the name of ''Hercules.''
88	* BigFriendlyDog: All the while the boys were fearing him and trying to get the ball back, he was ''playing'' with them. He ''licks'' Smalls at the first opportunity.
89	* LongLived: According to the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue, he lives to be "199 in doggy years," which would be equivalent to ''twenty-eight and a half'' for a human. That puts him a just few years short of the real world record holder for longest-lived dog, who lived to be thirty-one years and 165 days old. It's especially impressive because the Beast is an English Mastiff, and large dogs tend to have shorter lifespans than small ones.
90	* TeamPet: At the end of the film, the Sandlot kids adopt him as their mascot. We're treated to adorable shots of Hercules sitting in a custom-made baseball shirt, happily watching the kids play all summer long.
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92	!Mr. Mertle
93	!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/JamesEarlJones
94	Mr. Mertle, his owner, is actually a former Negro Leagues baseball player, whose blindness cut his career short. He named his dog in honor of his former teammate Creator/BabeRuth (who's considered the "Hercules of Baseball"). He befriends Smalls at the end. Smalls says at the end that Hercules lived to be 199 dog years old (about 28 1/2 years old).
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96	* CoolOldGuy: A former pro whose very understanding about kids accidentally knocking balls into his yard.
97	* GameBreakingInjury: Took a fastball to the side of the head, which ended up blinding him.
98	* ScaryBlackMan: He's built up as this scary individual who keeps a monstrous dog in his backyard. Subverted as he turns out to be a nice guy once the boys finally meet him. When the boys tell him that they were trying to get their ball back from his dog, he simply asks them why [[CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot they didn't just ask him to get it for them]].

Context Characters / TheSandlot