I always wondered, as a kid, how much of the Sandlot was true. I never figured very much, but I had this notion that Benny "The Jet" was a real baseball character who they just put in the movie.
But no, it's all fake. Imagine my horrible disappointment! Mr. Mertle isn't based on anyone, either!
The movie is still very fun, though I admit I am biased. I remember the movie from my childhood so it has some intrinsic nostalgic value. For a child, it is a great movie and it constantly tells you so. As an adult, this consistent reinforcement of "We got in the biggest ___ any of us had ever been in" get's tiresome. In the first five minutes of the movie, the narrator tells the audience this twice with regard to "pickles". I wanted to make a joke about this with my word-rating of the movie, but it's not really "the [anything] anyone has ever seen". Besides, that's a really long phrase to use. Instead, I think I'll just say that this is a "sentimental" movie.
The movie is episodic with very little transition from one story to the next. A little attention to transitions could have made the movie flow a little better. The child acting detracted from the flow as well. Kids are rarely brilliant actors. Since their characters were written pretty two-dimensionally, they didn't have the material to do much better, though. Some of the character's are really funny (particularly "Squints" just because of the faces he can make), and they all have a good line here or there.
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