The Sandlot Tour

One of our favorite movie’s of all time just celebrated its twentieth year anniversary. The Sandlot was originally released four years before my son, The Boy, was even born.  He actually got the movie for a present when he was three years old and he loved it so much that we wore that VHS out.

Have you seen this movie? Or maybe a better question would be, “How many times have you seen this movie?”  When it came out the late, famed movie critique, Roger Ebert said The Sandlot was a summertime version of A Christmas Story.  The story is about a young boy who recently moved into a new place. He meets eight boys who play ball together and although he has no baseball skill, out of necessity he becomes their ninth player. All goes well, unless you count the black-eye, until their baseball gets hit over the fence. Then they encounter “The Beast”, a rather large dog that eats baseballs for dinner. The movie is funny, memorable, totally quotable, and is a cute story of a group of boys who are growing up and finding themselves.

This photo has nothing to do with this story other than it was taken at the ball park. But isn't she cute!

To celebrate the anniversary there is currently a Sandlot Tour crossing the county, making twenty stops at twenty different ball parks. This past week, the tour came to our Community America Ballpark, home of the Kansas City T-Bones. The T-Bones are a professional baseball team part of the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball league, which is not affiliated with MLB. The director, co-writer, and voice of the narrator of The Sandlot was at the game last week where he threw out the first pitch, signed autographs all game long, sang the 7^th inning stretch song, “Take Me Out To The Ballpark”, hosted a trivia contest after the game, and introduced a special viewing of the movie on the jumbo-screen.

7th Inning Stretch "Take Me Out To The Ballgame!"

It was absolutely the best night to be at the ballpark watching baseball. Temps were below average for this time of the year in this part of the country. The tickets are so reasonable at Community America Park, and who can beat a $2.00 hot dog? Apparently, not my family!

The Boy got to meet David Mickey Evans, the director of The Sandlot, and get his copy of the movie autographed. The Boy was so awe-struck he just stood in front of David Mickey Evans and tried to formulate simple words! He performed worse during the trivia session and maybe left a little broken hearted that he failed to obtain an “I made out with Wendy Peffercorn” t-shirt!

The Short Chic had never seen the movie, The Sandlot. She has shown little interest in baseball but rather spends all of her days watching Princesses. She had no idea what the fuss was about until they started giving out posters during the trivia session. Then she decided she had to have one. Of course, with The Boy’s sudden loss of words, we did not win a poster and she left crying.  Luckily for her, we found a discarded poster in the parking lot, a little worse for wear but she is five, and she went to bed extra happy that night.

First Pitch

The next day, she and her brother snuggled together on the coach and he watched The Sandlot for the bizzionth time and she watched it for the very first time. She came running downstairs to tell us that she loved it and can’t wait to watch it again! All weekend long she has been telling us funny parts from the movie. Here we go again!

Oh, Mr. David Mickey Evans, I hope you will consider doing a 40^th reunion tour so she can come and meet you when she is older!

Check out David Mickey Evans blog  to find out if The Sandlot Tour is coming to your hometown.