Blog 4: Sandlot

Hunter Ricks

Kassia Jackson Waggoner

English 10803- Intro Comp: Writing as Inquiry 021

31 October 2016

The Sandlot

    Looking back on my childhood and some of my favorite movies, The Sandlot sticks out as one of my all time favorites. The Sandlot is the story of Scotty smalls, the new boy in town, who is trying to fit into the local crowd. That crowd was a bunch of kids who played baseball during their free time, except Scotty had no baseball skills whatsoever. Benny Rodriguez, one of the most gifted players in the neighborhood, took Scotty under his wing and taught him how to play the game. One of the main positive messages of this film is acceptance of someone that is different than you. There is also the message of brotherhood and being able to work together as a group. Benny stands up for Scotty numerous times throughout the film when the other kids thing he is just not good enough to be on the team. There are also some negative messages that can be perceived from a couple specific scenes.

Arguably the most crucial scene of the movie, the duel with “the beast”, has a crucial hidden message for all kids to learn. The power of being in a group and working on something TOGETHER to achieve a common goal. In this scene the sandlot boys lose a baseball over the fence into the beast’s cage. After careful thought and planning the sandlot boys work together by creating distractions and contraptions to allow Benny to retrieve the ball back. This scene has stuck with me till this day and is the epitome of camaraderie and brotherhood.  

    Unfortunately, there are some scenes in this movie that can have a potentially negative message that I never accounted for when I had seen this movie as a child. One scene in particular that pops out is the pool scene. Smalls purposely acts like he is drowning and quite frankly, almost did drown, just to get the attractive lifeguard to perform CPR on him. The message of putting yourself in harm to impress your friends or boost your self-esteem is not one that children should be adopting. Another scene in particular is the tobacco and carnival scene. A couple members of the sandlot baseball team try out chewing tobacco and subsequently puke on the rides. Now there is a positive message in the idea that it displays the negative consequence of trying this drug, but having this scene in there alone is potentially harmful considering the kids in the movie where not nearly of legal age. I understand this movie is a little dated and it may have been more acceptable back then to have chewing tobacco at such a young age.

Overall, I think the positive messages in the film outweigh the negative messages in the film. As a kid, I did not think of those messages as harmful and they have not negatively affected my life in particular, but I can say that the message of acceptance of someone that is different and working in a group to achieve a common goal are some of the ideals that I strive to achieve on a daily basis. The Sandlot is a wonderful film and I would recommend it to all children, but parents should realize some of these negative affects and address them to their kids after the movie.