In the late spring of 1962, Scott "Scotty" Smalls moves to the San Fernando Valley outside of Los Angeles with his widowed mother and recent stepfather, Bill. Smalls' mother encourages him to make friends, and he tries to join a group of eight boys who play baseball daily at the neighborhood sandlot, led by Benny Rodriguez and Veronica "Roni" Ruiz (Ruth). When an attempt to play catch with his stepdad Bill injures Smalls and leaves him with a black eye, Roni invites him onto the team and helps him improve his skills and earn the other boys' respect.
When DeNunez taunts Ham with his trademark pitch, "The Heater", Ham hits a home run into an adjacent backyard, and the team is dismayed. However, they stop Smalls from retrieving the ball and tell him of "the Beast", a legendary and large, fearsome English Mastiff living behind the fence. In the many previous years, many baseballs have gone over the fence, but every single one has been claimed by the Beast.
One particularly hot day, the team opts to go swimming at the neighborhood pool, in lieu of baseball. They end up getting kicked out after Squint fakes drowning so the lifeguard Wendy Peffercorn kisses him while giving mouth-to-mouth. The team plays a Fourth of July night game for Roni's birthday by the light of fireworks, and Smalls observes that, to Roni and Benny, "baseball was life." They later play against a snooty rival Little League team and win. As a result, they celebrate at a fair that night, but get sick after chewing tobacco and riding the Trabant.
One day, Roni hits the cover off the team's only ball (an omen). With Bill away on business for a week, Smalls opts to keep the game going, by borrowing his stepfather's prized baseball autographed by Babe Ruth. Unaware of its value, Smalls hits his first home run, sending it into the Beast's yard. When the team learns of the autograph, they quickly forge Babe Ruth's signature on a new ball to be a temporary replacement while they come up with a plan to rescue the autographed ball. The team attempts to recover the lost ball with various makeshift devices, but each attempt is thwarted by the Beast.
Finally, Benny gets the courage to get the ball and climbs into the Mertle's backyard. A standoff ensues between Benny and the Beast: Benny takes off running for the ball, slides and grabs the ball and takes off running. The Beast's chain rips off, resulting in a chase through the town. Roni who now has the ball outruns the dog all the way back to Mr. Mertle's yard, but the Beast crashes through the fence, and it falls down on top of him. Smalls and Benny free the Beast, who gratefully licks Smalls' face and leads them to its stash of baseballs. The two meet Mr. Mertle, who turns out to have been a baseball player and friendly rival of Babe Ruth, having lost his sight after being struck by a pitch. He kindly trades them the chewed-up ball for one autographed by all the Murderers's Row.
Bill loves the Murderer's Row ball but still grounds Smalls for a week for ruining his Babe Ruth autographed ball. Their relationship improves, and Smalls begins to call him "Dad". The boys and Roni play on the sandlot the rest of that summer, and several subsequent summers with the Beast – whose real name is Hercules – as their mascot. As the years pass, the boys go their separate ways: Yeah-Yeah enlists in the army; Bertram disappears into the counterculture movement; Timmy and Tommy become an architect and a contractor; Squints marries Wendy, has nine kids with her, and the two run the local drug store; Ham becomes a professional wrestler: "The Great Hambino"; DeNunez plays triple-A baseball, but later owns a business and coaches his sons' Little League team; and Benny and Roni earn the nicknames "the Jet" after word spreads around about his encounter with the Beast.
As an adult, Smalls becomes a sports commentator and remains friends with Benny and Roni, now a player for the Los Angeles Dodgers, giving each other the same thumbs-up sign they have shared since childhood. In Smalls' broadcast booth, he owns and keeps on display the chewed-up Babe Ruth autographed ball, the Murderer's Row ball, the forged Babe Ruth ball, some pictures of Babe Ruth, and a large picture of the Sandlot kids from 1962.
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LEGENDS NEVER DIE
Fanfiction"Remember kid, there's heroes and there's legends. Heroes get remembered but legends never die, follow your heart kid, and you'll never go wrong." This story is about a girl named is Veronica "Roni" Ruth. Yes, as in The Babe Ruth. One day on a lone...
