‘It’s the little film that keeps on giving’: ‘The Sandlot’ director and actors on the film’s 30th anniversary

“Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.”

It’s been three decades since the April 7, 1993, release of “The Sandlot” and the movie has officially achieved legend status.

“Not a day goes by since the movie came out that I don’t at least hear ‘you’re killing me smalls’ at least two or three times in the world,” David Mickey Evans, “The Sandlot” director, told the Deseret News. “It’s the little film that keeps on giving.”

The Deseret News spoke with Evans and stars Shane Obedzinski, Grant Gelt and Victor DiMattia about favorite memories from the making of “The Sandlot,” the film’s modern relevancy and if the film could be made in 2023.

‘The Sandlot’ director David Mickey Evans: ‘We gotta go to Utah’

The Deseret News spoke with Evans, director of “The Sandlot.”

Deseret News: What inspired the idea for “The Sandlot”?

David Mickey Evans: I was driving home ... and an incident from my childhood just occurred to me. I remembered this time we were on this avenue that we lived on when we were kids, and at the end of the block my brother jumped over the wall to get a baseball and a dog bit him in the leg and stuff and so I thought about that, I thought, well, that’s a pretty good idea for a movie, you know? A bunch of kids, a valuable baseball, they lose it and they gotta get it back. Pretty simple.

DN: When you began looking for people to work on the movie, what were people’s initial reactions to the script?

DME: Well, the buyers in Hollywood — everyone wanted to buy it. It was a really popular script at that time.

It’s tough to get those kind of pictures made today, back then it was a bit easier, you know, small pictures that are not based on comic books and such. So the crew really dug it. Everybody was on the same page.

DN: It sounds like it came together pretty fast.

DME: It was pretty fast. Mark Burg, the producer, was the only guy in Hollywood that would give me the job to direct my own script. And he said, “We’ll go to Utah and shoot it.”

It’s supposed to take place in the San Fernando Valley, in southern California, but labor laws and such and unions at the time, the producers didn’t want to do that. They wanted to work in a right-to-work state, Utah at the time being that.

So we said we gotta go to Utah and, luckily, there’s only one other place in the world that looks like the San Fernando Valley, which is a desert encircled by purple mountains, the San Gorgonios, and that place is Salt Lake City, which is a desert, at a higher elevation, surrounded by purple mountains, the Wasatch range. And it was a perfect double. A perfect place to shoot the picture.

DN: What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in bringing the story together?

DME: The heat that summer was a big factor. It was like 110, 112 degrees sometimes. And most of “The Sandlot” movie is shot outdoors, so you really gotta watch your actors.

Other than that, weather was not too big a deal, which can really mess up your shoot. Summers in Salt Lake we found were pretty awesome, just beautiful.

The trickiest, touchiest, most delicate part of the whole process is finding the right kids. We actually got a cast, a bunch of 9- and 10-year-olds, to be in the movie and when we brought them all in together, as an ensemble, to look at them ... and I said ‘Oh my gosh they look like babies.’ So we had to tell all them thank you very much ... and then we started all over again.

DN: Why did you choose to set it in the ’60s?

There’s a B-story in the original script where Benny, during the summer of ’62, he is trying to keep pace with a baseball player named Maury Wills who played for the Dodgers in 1962, and he broke the stolen bases record that year, it was supposed to be an unbeatable record. And Benny, being so fast, wanted to keep pace and steal just as many bases as Maury Wills did.

Plus you get all the nostalgia and I really like that stuff. So that’s why it was ’62.

DN: When you were having kids audition for parts, was throwing a baseball part of the criteria?

DME: Yeah. We took them out, at our casting office there was Little League fields nearby, so we took them out.

If a kid says, “Yeah I can play baseball.” Well, I want to see it.

I wanted it to be honest and authentic. I had a bunch of Major League Baseball prospects out there who were 11 years old and could throw 90 mph fast balls. But that’s not good, it would be silly. I wanted them to be good but kid good, you know?

DN: Did any of the actors exceed your expectations bringing the character to life?

DME: All of them did. Absolutely all of them did. There was always a moment, I can name each moment.

Mike Vitar as Benny, on screen and in the movie, is the leader of the Sandlot gang. But in real life, he was also like that ... he rubbed off on the other guys. ... Everybody was under his wing and he was kind of the leader.

Scotty Smalls, played by Tom Guiry, in the movie he’s just this goofy, uncoordinated kid that can’t play baseball when in real life, Tommy was like a third-degree black belt and a super athletic kid. ... So it took awhile for him to wrap his head around, as like a 12-year-old, to look goofy. Because no 12-year-old wants to look bad. So his ability to look uneducated or untrained in the baseball arts was terrific.

DN: What is your favorite scene from the movie?

DME: The nighttime baseball scene.

I knew that there needed to be a scene in this movie that really hit the nail on the head with this was my childhood in America — baseball nights, fireworks, you know, you’re 12, you’re gonna live forever, you’re in a magic spot, anything can happen.

DN: If the movie were set in 2023, how do you think it would change? Do you think the movie would still work?

DME: I’ve been asked many, many times if I think “The Sandlot” is a defunct American institution. You know, when I was a kid every neighborhood had a sandlot, every kid got on their bike when the sun came out, didn’t come home till the street lights came on, that kind of thing. Who does that today? Nobody.

Yeah, I don’t think so, it wouldn’t have the same impact, it wouldn’t have the same meaning, I don’t think it would generate the same kind of love that the picture has, that people have for it. ... I think you’d have to bend too many sociocultural tropes today in order to make it seem as though they were in their own little world — but they’re not cause they’ve all got iPhones in their back pockets.

DN: Why do you think “The Sandlot” still resonates with kids in 2023?

DME: I think it’s an identification thing, even though there aren’t sandlots and stuff like that, well, personalities are still what they are. We’re all human. Every kid still knows a Benny or someone like him, every kids knows a wise guy like Squints, everybody knows an awkward dude like Bertram, so I think no matter who you are you, either were one of those kids, knew one of those kids or definitely wanted to be one of those kinds of kids.

DN: How do you feel about the movie 30 years later?

DME: I’m very proud of it. It has stayed the test of time and it doesn’t show any signs of not being like that forever.

Shane Obedzinski: ‘The greatest summer of my life’

Shane Obedzinski played Tommy “Repeat” Timmons in “The Sandlot.”

Deseret News: What was your initial reaction to “The Sandlot”?

Shane Obedzinski: I was less interested in the baseball aspect and more interested in the beast and the pranks and the crazy stuff we do to try and get the ball out. I was more interested in the friendship that me and the boys had.

DN: What was your audition like?

SO: Once I got out to L.A. there was several boys there. There was, I remember, like 50 or more. ... And every day they narrowed it down. ... Every day you’d wake up and there would be kids who went home and you knew they didn’t get the part.

DN: It sounds like director David Mickey Evans hired you all and then cast you in your roles. Is that how it happened?

SO: When we weren’t auditioning or reading we were hanging out. So I remember everyone would watch who was friends, who looked like boys that hung out. So then the friendship then looked realistic on the screen.

He (Evans) wanted to see who really was those characters.

DN: What is one of your favorite memories from shooting the movie?

SO: I always remember we had such a good time in the treehouse. Whenever we weren’t filming, that’s where me and all the boys would go to hang out. And they could always find us there.

I do remember several occasions where we would mess up or there would be bloopers or we would accidentally say the wrong thing and then we would all laugh and David would get frustrated and I just remember those memories were so much fun. That’s partly why it was the greatest summer of our lives.

DN: So you would still say it was one of the greatest summers of your life?

SO: It was definitely the greatest summer of my life. And me and the boys kind of say now that the 25th anniversary of the film, that summer, might have beaten it as far as the greatest summer ever.

DN: Are you and the other actors still pretty close?

SO: Closer than ever. Ever since the 20th anniversary, so almost 10 years ago now, we’ve been in contact if not daily then weekly. We’re always texting or chatting or going to see each other on the weekends.

DN: Did you expect this level of success from the movie when you made it?

SO: I would be very surprised if anyone said that they expected it.

It wasn’t until maybe 18 years later, right before the 20th anniversary. ... I go to the mall and I see myself on a shirt and I’m like, “What? Why? Who’s gonna buy this?” And then I realized that everyone’s buying that.

DN: Why do you think that “The Sandlot” still resonates with kids today?

SO: Kids will like it cause its cool. It’s kids getting into trouble and there’s a big dog and you know, crazy stuff. And then parents will like it because it reminds them of simpler times and how their lives were. So they’re bonding on it on two different levels and it very, very cool that it has that effect on people.

DN: What role does the movie still play in your life today?

SO: I was able to act in a lot of different things as I was growing up, some of those things are remembered and respected but none of them are remembered and respected like “The Sandlot.” And to this day we’re still talking about it, we’re still celebrating it.

It’s part of my everyday life and thats very, very cool. I cant escape it and I wouldn’t want to.

Grant Gelt’s experience starring in ‘The Sandlot’: ‘It was like summer camp’

Grant Gelt played Bertram Grover Weeks in “The Sandlot.”

Deseret News: What was it like working with “The Sandlot” kids? Did you guys hit it off from the start?

Grant Gelt: We were pretty close right away. And it’s funny because we’re still very, very close today.

But it was like summer camp. We would shoot the film during the day and a couple times at night. And then we’d go and they had us all staying in the apartment complex that had pools and stuff like that. So just like normal summer camp, we’d go back to the apartment, eat there, go swimming, go to other people’s apartments, play video games, watch TV, listen to music, go to sleep. And go back and do it again the next day.

DN: What was it like shooting in Salt Lake City?

GG: You know what the summer is like out there, pretty rough. And there was not a lot of shade out there. ... It was hot.

Did Shane tell you about the story of the pool scene though?

DN: No, but I’d love to hear it.

GG: So that was supposed to be the hottest day of summer, right? In the film everyone is saying, “It’s so hot we gotta go to the pool.” And all summer long, it’s so unbearably hot.

And the pool day was like record cold day for Salt Lake City. It was like 40 degrees as a high. It was like unheard of summer weather so the pool wasn’t heated.

It was freezing cold. Freezing cold. So if you go back and watch that scene again, you’ll see everybody in the wide shots just shivering.

DN: What is a favorite memory you have from shooting the movie?

GG: There was a huge fireworks stand set up directly across the street from our apartments. ... And I remember all of us just had our eyes on those fireworks for like a month. So trying to talk everybody into letting us go get fireworks and shoot them off while filming a movie that we all needed hands for was quite the thing.

DN: Do you have a favorite line or joke from the movie?

GG: They all crack me up. I just watched it the other night, believe it or not. There was a screening here in Nashville.

What struck me the most was how much dialogue happened behind the scenes. ... There’s some really funny chatter in the tree house during the s’more scene. If you listen to that its like a whole secret track.

When Squints says, “Hurry up, Benny, my clothes are going out of style,” you hear Victor (DiMattia) in the background saying, “Because they already are.”

DN: Why do you think “The Sandlot” still resonates with kids in 2023?

GG: I think about that a lot. I think because it’s not a baseball movie. It’s really a movie about friendship and acceptance and overcoming obstacles. These kids, when you really look at it, you can find yourself in one of those kids.

DN: What role does the movie play in your life today?

GG: I’m forever tied to this. I think it’s a bizarre thing to do something when you’re 12 and have that moment in your life captured for everybody.

Every time somebody tells me what the film has meant to them, I feel like I don’t deserve that, because it means so much to so many people.

It’s a great way to learn humility really, really quickly.

Victor DiMattia: ‘We were always getting into trouble’

Victor DiMattia played Timmy Timmons in “The Sandlot.”

Deseret News: Do you remember meeting the other “Sandlot” guys? What was that like?

Victor DiMattia: After we were all cast, then we had a really long rehearsal process. ... It went on for, I don’t know, I want to say six weeks.

It was in L.A., and we would go and we would rehearse up until lunch ... and then after lunch we would go to a nearby baseball field and we would all play baseball together. And that went on for awhile so by the time we left to go to Salt Lake, where we filmed, we were all already really close.

DN: When you guys practiced baseball was there a lot of training?

VD: It was like baseball practice. So we’d go and they’d hit grounders to us and pop flies and then we’d practice batting and then maybe we’d play a little bit. It was just like being on a Little League team.

We had a coach, who actually is in the movie. He plays Squint’s grandfather in the flashback, Daniel Zacapa.

DN: Was there a time you got into any big trouble behind the scenes like your characters in the movie?

VD: We were always getting into trouble. We were always pulling little pranks on each other and doing stuff like that. This is a story that had kind of been around a little bit, but we all snuck into a movie theater and watched “Basic Instinct” when it had just come out. But we were always messing around. A lot of it was just us goofing around on set.

DN: What is your favorite scene from the movie — either to shoot or watch?

VD: Well, my favorite scene probably to watch was when the vacuum cleaners explode and I come out of the treehouse covered in dirt.

It was a terrible scene to film cause they had to cover me in all that dirt makeup from head to toe. They caked it all over my clothes. They were stuffing it in my pockets and the cuffs of my jeans because David wanted it to look like Pig-Pen from the Peanuts.

They were just stuffing that dirt everywhere they could. So it took awhile — it took a few showers to get that all cleaned out.

DN: How has your relationship with the movie changed as you’ve grown up?

VD: It’s easier to watch, that’s for sure. It’s kind of like watching home videos. Because every time I watch something I get all these memories about things that happened while we were making it.

When you’re younger, it’s kind of hard to see yourself like that. It’s a little cringey watching yourself in that way. But now that I’m older I can look back and really appreciate it.

DN: Have you had any memorable interactions with “Sandlot” super fans?

VD: It’s really just amazing. It’s such a blessing to have been a part of something that’s so meaningful to people and even 30 years later, it just means so much to people.

When people come up to me and tell me stories about the effect that it has had on their lives. ... That’s the stuff that really sticks with me.

DN: Is there anything else you want to add?

VD: The movie is bigger than just baseball. It’s about the friendship and the camaraderie and it really is about acceptance.

Even the kid that can’t play, he’s not athletic, he doesn’t really fit in and we bring him in and we make him a part of the team and we make him a friend. Thats really what I think that movie is about to me. I hope that is the lasting impact that it has on people.