Fifth-grader Scotty Smalls is the new kid in town in the summer of 1962. He’s eager to make new friends, so when the neighborhood sandlot baseball team needs one more player, he doesn’t mention that he doesn’t know how to play. After an embarrassing first game, Scotty is befriended by the team’s star player who is willing to teach him what to do. After their ball is lost, Scotty borrows his stepdad’s–autographed by Babe Ruth. He scores his first homerun, but loses the ball in a neighbor’s yard, a yard guarded by “The Beast.” An unconventional, thoroughly satisfying film, Roger Ebert called The Sandlot the summertime version of A Christmas Story.

Rated PG due to name-calling and some pubescent behavior.