Like so many other parents of college students, my mom is in the process of getting rid of my childhood toys, games and videos. For upperclassman without younger siblings, this is probably not news. If you are a first year who is the baby of your family, sorry, but most of your stuff is gone by now. (Open your eyes: That's why you can't have a car here your first year!)
Anyways, my mom is a smart cookie and waited until my brother Matt and I were out of the house and away at college before beginning to remove the remnants of our childhoods, knowing that it would take quite some time for us to warm up to the idea. More than a year later, I have finally accepted that I can't keep all of my old stuff.
At the end of this summer, mom had set out to get rid of our vast collection of Disney and similar kid movies. She told us that we could pick out a few of the ones that we simply couldn't part with, but the majority of them were going to be donated.
Everyone has that group of movies from their childhood that they just could not get enough of. For me, many of those movies were sports-related. The 'Mighty Ducks' series, 'Rookie of the Year' and 'Cool Runnings' got heavy rotation on our VCR back in the day and, therefore, held too much significance for me to part with.
Another of these defining movies for me was 'The Sandlot' (not to be confused with that recent garbage remake). I actually got a double dose of this film, given that in addition to watching it often as a kid, my youngest brother Danny (who referred to it as "Nine Boys, One Beast") used to watch it practically every day for a year or two so it was usually on when I got from home from school.
If you haven't seen 'The Sandlot' and were planning to in the near future, you may want to stop reading. I am not going to ruin the climax, but I am going to dissect the ending.
Here's a refresher: 'The Sandlot' is the story of Scotty Smalls' greatest summer ever, when he moves to a new town and meets Benny Rodriguez, the leader of a sandlot baseball team. Trouble arises when the boys lose a baseball signed by Babe Ruth in the yard adjacent to the sandlot, home to a huge dog, nicknamed "The Beast."
The movie culminates with a scene that takes place about twenty years later. Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez is now playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and, in the bottom of the ninth, he pinch-runs and steals home to win the game. I love this movie, but this is like the worst ending ever.
Benny's signature move throughout 'The Sandlot' is to hit a deep fly ball into the gap then run all the way around the bases before getting into a rundown between third base and home plate, ultimately scoring after maneuvering his way out of the "pickle."
This should have been the end of the movie: Benny comes up to bat with no one on base, score tied, two outs in the bottom of the ninth. He hits a ball deep into the gap and runs all the way to third, running through the coach's stop sign and heading for home. Benny gets into a rundown, and clips from his childhood in the sandlot and present day with the Dodgers are intertwined on screen until he eventually scores the winning run. Then he gives the thumbs-up to Smalls in the press box, the camera zooms into the picture of the boys as kids and everyone lives happily-ever-after.
I've made this presentation before, to mixed results from friends. The only halfway decent argument was the fact that Benny was in the twilight of his career and the whole point of the scene was to prove that he was still "The Jet" and able to steal home in the major leagues. But that certainly pales in comparison to getting out of a pickle, the same way he does multiple times throughout the film.
Many of you may be wondering how I got away with a 450-word rant about 'The Sandlot' in a Cavalier Daily sports column. Actually, I am still kind of wondering that myself. But I think every once in a while it's good to step back from the world of sports and realize there are other equally important things in our lives.
That was one of the major themes of 'The Sandlot.' Sure, the movie was mostly about baseball, but it was also all about the friendship of the nine main characters and their willingness to bail one another out of any pickle.
I can't think of a much better time to take a step back from U.Va. athletics, what with the current state of our football team as it is. It's unfortunate that an institution is most commonly judged by its product on the gridiron. All of the magnificent attributes of U.Va. can be overshadowed by the score each Saturday.
This week, the football team actually has a big test in Duke, the college equivalent of a bye week. What used to be a guaranteed victory could now be a legitimate struggle, and the very thought of that makes me want to relive easier days with one of my favorite childhood movies. Dibs on 'The Sandlot' at Clemons.
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