Trivia / The Sandlot

• California Doubling: Despite taking place in 1960s Los Angeles, the film was shot in Salt Lake City, Utah while the sequels would be filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia.
• Descended Creator: Director/co-writer David Mickey Evans is also the film's narrator.
• Enforced Method Acting: To establish the bond between Smalls and Benny, David Mickey Evans brought Tom Guiry and Mike Vitar to the production a couple of weeks before the other boys so they could rehearse and get to know each other. It worked so well that when the other actors arrived, they genuinely believed that the two had been long time friends.
• Friendship on the Set: The young cast became fast friends, with many of them saying the filming was a lot like summer camp since they got to play baseball all the time.
• Irony as She Is Cast:
  • Smalls' stepfather is a Yankees fan, while Denis Leary, who plays him, is a long-time Red Sox fan and despises the Yankees.
  • Smalls is a complete novice to baseball while Tom Guiry had played Little League for years before the film.
• Playing Against Type: His acerbic stand-up aside, Denis Leary is also known for playing morally ambiguous anti-heroes in most of his film roles. Here, he plays a calm (if slightly awkward) family man.
• Real-Life Relative: The actor who played the elder Benny is Pablo Vitar, brother of Mike Vitar, who played the young Benny.
  • The sequel has Griffin Reilly Evans who plays The Retriever. He is the son of David Mickey Evans, the director of the first two movies.
• Role Reprise:
  • James Earl Jones returns as Mr. Mertle in the second movie.
  • Chauncey Leopardi returns as Squints for the third movie.
• Uncredited Role: Arliss Howard plays Scott Smalls as an adult, but is uncredited.
• What Could Have Been:
  • David Mickey Evans wanted to have more sequels for the movie, each taking place in the subsequent decade (one in The '80s, one in The '90s, and so on).
  • According to Patrick Renna, the trash talk scene was originally scripted to have Benny go against Phillips. However, Evans eventually decided that it would be out of character for him to engage in Volleying Insults so they switched it to Ham.
  • The movie was meant to star six-to-seven year olds and a group had already been cast. Then, people realized just how uncomfortable some of the lines sounded coming out of the mouths of children that young. The initial cast was let go and older boys were hired.

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