The Sandlot: Extra Innings

Imagining When They Grew Up

I recently had the privilege of writing a guest essay about The Sandlot for The 90-Minute Movie. You can click that first link to read what I wrote. I had a ton of fun writing it and I’m very proud of how it came out. More importantly, hit that subscribe button while you’re over there! Amanda writes some great pieces about movies and she was gracious enough to invite Substack’s film community to write guest essays on her platform. Substack has so many talented writers that have a passion for film. It’s really cool to see the different perspectives of our community.

A few of us were chatting in the comments of that piece about a potential legacy sequel for The Sandlot. It got me thinking of what that could look like in 2025. We live in a world of legacy sequels. The Cobra Kai series on Netflix, Creed, and Top Gun: Maverick to name a few. Shoot, this trailer for Tron: Ares came out today and it’s the injection of adrenaline that I didn’t know I needed.

Two Sandlot “sequels” actually exist. We will never mention the straight-to-DVD movies after this passage. They can be lost to history for all I care. We have an opportunity though. We can craft a worthy sequel to the greatest kids sports movie ever made, but it’s not going to be a movie. I think it works best as a series. We need the runway to tell a full story so let’s do a 24-episode limited series. Each character will get a three-episode arc to tell their story and it will culminate in a reunion during the final stretch of the show. Fortunately, the end of The Sandlot gives us a foundation to work with…

“I kept in touch with those guys over the years, and I found out that…”

“Yeah Yeah”

“…Yeah Yeah’s parents shipped him off to military school. After the Army, he became one of the pioneering developers of bungee jumping…”

There is a sad reality of The Sandlot that nobody talks about. It takes place in 1962 and all of the boys are 12 or 13 years old. John F. Kennedy is one year away from being assassinated and the United States is just a couple years from entering a full-scale war in Vietnam. At least a couple of The Sandlot Boys would have been deployed Southeast Asia. Yeah Yeah served in the Army so he most definitely served in Vietnam.

Oh, I didn’t mention that our Sandlot mini-series is not for kids. It’s for the generation of adults that grew up with the movie and the characters are going to grow up with us.

Yeah Yeah serves multiple tours and experiences some of the worst combat of the war. He returns home carrying the weight of the war, but is still very proud of his service. He moves to Oakland after the war, gets married, has a few kids, and is very active in the local VFW. Inventing bungee jumping is the big break that he needed his family is set for life. Yeah Yeah buys Oakland Athletic season tickets and his kids idolize Reggie Jackson. He’s in the Coliseum when Rickey Henderson breaks the all-time stolen base record, but he spends his life preaching that Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez was always the better ballplayer.

Bertram Grover Weeks

“…Bertram, well, Bertram got really into the 60’s, and no one ever saw him again…”

Just look at Bertram’s eyes after sniffing the chaw. This guy was taking all the LSD and smoking all the weed he could find. His hair grew out to his middle back and he moved to San Francisco. Peace, love, sex, and Rock & Roll would change the world. Bertram was a hippie to the core. Why did no one see him again? He got his draft card in the mail, burned it, and fled to Canada. Bertram never moved back to the United States and he never cared for baseball in his adult life. He did mature, marry a man named Jerry, and cut out the hard drugs (not the weed). Bertram and Jerry opened up a little homemade ice cream shop in Winnipeg. He tells his husband that they need to make a trip to Los Angeles after he hears something on the radio about Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez playing baseball.

Timmy & Tommy Timmons

“…Timmy and Tommy became an architect and a contractor. They started out small, designing playground equipment and prefabricated tree houses. But they became multimillionaires when they invented mini-malls…”

I’ll be honest, it’s going to take a lot of work to make this story arc interesting. Timmy and Tommy are good kids, but probably the least interesting of the bunch. Their episodes have to a buddy comedy ala Step Brothers. They attend UCLA and never get married…because Tommy keeps repeating after Timmy. It makes it hard to vibe with the ladies, but the brothers are best friends so they don’t sweat it. One thing not mentioned at the end of the film, Timmy and Tommy become one of the early pioneers of Fantasy Baseball!

Squints & Wendy Peffercorn

“…Squints grew up and married Wendy Peffercorn. They have nine kids. They bought Vincent’s Drugstore, and they still own it today…”

My guy, Squints. I always feel like Squints was the scrappy blue collar kid of the neighborhood. My dude was also not afraid to shoot his shot. So, how did he and Wendy get together?

Wendy has to be a little older than Squints, right? If he’s 13 and she’s a lifeguard at the local pool, she’s probably around 16 or 17 at the time of the infamous kiss. It was a kiss that she never forgot about it. Disgusted, but somewhat amazed at this kid’s foolish courage. As adults, Wendy happens to be a bartender at the local bar that Squints frequents. After many nights of laughs and closing down the bar, Michael “Squints” Palledorous shoots his shot…again. This time is different. Wendy returns the favor and the rest is history. They get married, buy the drugstore, and have nine kids. Squints takes his kids (and the dog) to the Sandlot where he grew up playing ball and he teaches them how to throw, catch, and hit. He follows Benny’s career closely and takes the family to one Dodgers game a year. The family’s favorite ballpark memory is when Benny gives each of the kids an autographed ball and a pair of P.F. Flyers.

Phillips

Phillips doesn’t get an episode arc, but he definitely makes an appearance in our show. This kid is never the same after the drubbing that the Sandlot kids put on his Little League team. His dream of playing in the Major Leagues is crushed when he never bats better than .220 in high school and the scouts never come to the games to see him. The scouts are there to see Benny play. Benny goes to the public school across town and Phillips is at the rival private school. And yet, Phillips never finds humility in life. He’s the type of guy that wears his letterman jacket to his 20-year high school reunion. We see him walk into the bar all cocky and trying to flirt with Wendy. Squints steps in and they take it outside. We get a really scrappy bar fight. The guy in the letterman jacket is the one that gets the black eye and bloody nose.

This Guy

I always wanted to know this guy’s story. He’s got the face of a kid that took a few minutes to process Ham’s “YOU PLAY BALL LIKE A GIRL!” diss of Phillips. I did my research, but couldn’t find a character name or even an actor in the cast list. Let’s just put him in the show as a guy that’s still hanging out with Phillips and he’s there at the bar fight scene.

Ham Porter

“…Hamilton Porter became a professional wrestler. You know him as the Great Hambino…”

Holy cow, we could have A LOT of fun with these episodes. We might have to bend the timeline a bit, but let’s have him wrestle Ric Flair, “Macho Man” Randy Savage, and Hulk Hogan. The Great Hambino is the two-time Intercontinental Wrestling Champion of the World. Late in his career, when he’s lost a step, Ham Porter is a frequent attraction at Minor League Baseball Wrestling Nights. He signs autographs and wrestles when they roll out a ring after the end of the game. His favorite part of the night? The post-baseball and post-wrestling fireworks show.

Kenny DeNunez

“DeNunez played Triple-A ball, but he never got to the Majors. He owns his own business now, and he coaches a Little League team that his sons play on called The Heaters…”

Kenny DeNunez has always been one of my favorite characters in The Sandlot. Part of the reason is that the actor, Brandon Quintin Adams, also plays Jesse Hall in the Mighty Ducks films. I had to do a little IMDB search and he’s still acting today, albeit smaller roles. The biggest surprise is that he appears in Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” music video. He’s also in a couple episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

So, Kenny’s storyline in the show….He never made it to the Major Leagues, but had a decent career in Triple-A. Why? He also served in the Vietnam War. He got drafted at the age of 20. He also served in combat, but did not view his service with the same amount of pride as Yeah Yeah did. Kenny viewed the war through the lens of the race and class struggles of the 60s and 70s. After his tour of duty, Kenny gets involved with the post-MLK Civil Rights Movement. He attends a try out with the San Jose Missions of the Pacific Coast League. His arm impresses the front office enough to get a season-by-season contract. Kenny becomes a Triple-A journeyman, playing for the teams in Portland, Omaha, and Toledo. He hangs up the cleats, settles down in Kansas City, and gets married. He and his wife own a sports equipment shop for the local youth teams. Kenny and his sons win multiple Little League city titles with The Heaters.

Scotty “Smalls”

Smalls and Benny are obviously the only two characters that we actually see as adults in The Sandlot. Smalls is the radio guy for the Dodgers, but we need to know how he got there. College at USC, announcing Minor League games that include Kenny playing and Ham wrestling, and he gets married and has a couple of kids. His son wants to be a wrestler like his dad’s friend, The Great Hambino. Smalls is thankful that it’s just a phase. His daughter grows up to be a very good softball player that gets a scholarship to play in college.

It is very befitting that Smalls is the one that organizes the reunion. He is the one that makes the phone call that gets the Sandlot Gang back to together…

Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez

Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez gets drafted by the Dodgers out of high school. He is plagued by injuries early on in his career and that’s part of the reason why Rickey Henderson, not Benny, broke Major League Baseball’s all-time steals record. Despite the early injuries, he has a long enough career to be a beloved Dodger for life. He is part of three World Series Championship teams. Benny announces his retirement two years after stealing home at the end of the film. The Dodgers barely miss the playoffs in his last season, but Benny plays his last game #162 in Dodger Stadium. Sitting behind the dugout are seven men and their families. These men formed a lifelong bond with the baseball player and the team’s announcer. Their friendship is one for the ages. The Sandlot Reunion is to celebrate the retirement and illustrious career of the Legend, Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez.