The Sandlot The Rewatchables
The Sandlot poster
The Sandlot

Picking Nits

Smalls unable to throw; stepdad never teaching; Hercules's implausible age; unkept backyard; unquestioned gift ball; misspelled Babe Ruth ball; no Playboys; Hank Aaron card giveaway; unprotected signed ball; unused second baseball; 98-cent baseball; unrepaired fence

In the discussion (16)
Approx. transcript time · 01:04:08Read transcript
  • No 12-year-old could be that bad at throwing; maybe he just has the yips.
  • The stepdad never actually teaches him, just says watch.
  • The narrator says Hercules lived to 199 dog years, about 28 and a half, which no mastiff could.
  • A chained dog with a blind owner who is never walked means the backyard should be full of dog waste.
  • Hercules and Mr. Myrtle share a special bond; the chaining in the sun is distressing, but the dog may have learned his own bathroom etiquette. — Mallory Rubin
  • A stepdad should be alarmed when a strange man gives his kid a 1927 Yankees ball and weekly visits.
  • Babe Ruth's name is misspelled on the ball and never paid off, a red herring like the Russian in the woods on The Sopranos; Benny as a student of the game should know the spelling.
  • None of the boys having seen a Playboy magazine in 1962 is not believable. — Mallory Rubin
  • The boys buy candy at drugstores and got hold of chewing tobacco; there should also have been packs of 1962 baseball cards in the tree house.
  • Even in a dream, Benny would not give away a Hank Aaron rookie card, given 253 home runs from 1954 to 1961.
  • A signed Babe Ruth ball should be in a protective case; a counterpoint says that is how it was done in 1962.
  • The mother's line about the stepdad not liking his stuff touched is creepy, reinforcing the belief that he hit Smalls on purpose.
  • The film centers on memorabilia, a very early-1990s preoccupation; a signed ball would not carry that weight now.
  • Why Smalls takes the signed ball when he has the one he played catch with is unexplained.
  • A baseball costing 98 cents in 1962, around $15 now, is questioned.
  • No one tells the blind Mr. Myrtle his fence fell, and it is never repaired: kids who built an erector set can't put a fence back up.