10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About 'The Sandlot'

9. Speaking of Squints, the actor who played him - Chauncey Leopardi - would go on to snag another infamous cult classic role. He would star as notorious high school dickhead Alan in Judd Apatow's "Freaks and Geeks."

8. Although "The Sandlot" is a rosy look back at apple-cheeked 1960s Americana, the truth behind it was much darker. Evans, like the main character Smalls, moved from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to the San Fernando Valley when he was 6. "It's not a particularly fun memory. There was a lot of, unfortunately, not-so-fun stuff in our childhood," Evans said.

"So I decided one day I'm going to change history." He recalls that he and his brother got beat up by local kids rather than embraced, and even their "The Beast" storyline ended in tears rather than triumph. "[The local kids] hit their ball over a backyard fence, actually a brick wall," Evans said. The boys told Evans' brother that if he retrieved the ball, they would let him play.

The younger Evans climbed the wall, and came face-to-face with a snarling German Shepard. "The dog broke the chain and bit him right in the thigh, and ripped him up real bad," explains Evans. "He got away from it, and they got their ball back and sort of laughed at him, and he staggered home."

7. Mike Vitar (who played Benny "The Jet" Rodriquez) didn't have much of an acting career beyond "The Sandlot" - although he does share the unique honor with co-star Brandon Adams of appearing in both this baseball classic and the "Mighty Duck" movies. Instead, Vitar bounced around on TV before giving it up and becoming a firefighter.

6. In the final scene, the older Benny - seen playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers - is actually played by Mike Vitar's actual older brother, Pablo. 

5. There have actually been two "Sandlot" sequels, both of which went straight to video. The first is "The Sandlot 2," which featured a new gang of kids and is essentially a straight retread of the original.

One of the characters is Johnny Smalls, brother to the first movie's Scotty, and James Earl Jones reprises his role of grumpy neighbor Mr. Mertle.

The third, "The Sandlot: Heading Home" is a total head-scratching starring Luke Perry as a successful baseball player who gets beaned and somehow travels back to his 70s childhood. But, hey...they got Squints to reprise his role!

4. You can say this about the Sandlot kids, they never forget their fans. In 2009, Marty York, who played "Yeah Yeah," was arrested in an L.A. nightclub after allegedly getting into a brawl with his girlfriend (he claimed he "backhanded her," but only in self-defense) He then asked Sandlot fans to help him pay his legal bills.

3. David Evans might have based this on real life, but he still needed to check his facts. In the voiceover, Smalls claims that Babe Ruth's "called shot" was made at Yankee Stadium during game three of the 1932 World Series in the bottom of the ninth. It was actually the top of the fifth inning, in Wrigley Field.

2. Similarly, Mr. Mertle shows Smalls a picture of himself posing with fellow major leaguers Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. That's pretty significant, because it would mean that Mr. Mertle was the first African-American to play professional baseball. Ruth retired in 1935 and Gehrig in 1939. Jackie Robinson didn't break the color barrier until 1947.