[Event preview by Charles Cassady, Jr.]
What important
thing happened 20 years ago? Oh, besides the last known time someone in Cleveland
actually found a job? It was the premiere of THE SANDLOT, the family comedy that
brought to amateur baseball the same effortlessly entertaining vibe that A CHRISTMAS STORY did for Noel.
This summer, to coincide with the DVD/Blu Ray anniversary edition of the Fox
release, writer-director-narrator David Mickey Evans is touring with the film
and meeting fans.
Evans will visit
Classic Park, home of the Lake County Captains, on Friday, July 12, for a fan
meet-and-greet and a screening of the movie (now rated G by the MPAA; the
original cut was PG).
Set in 1962, 1993’s
THE SANDLOT was based on Evans’ childhood memories and was deliberately cast
with young unknowns (though grownup actors Denis Leary, James Earl Jones and
Karen Allen had nice supporting turns). The plot has non-athlete kid Scotty
uprooted by his mother's remarriage and relocated to a California town where he
befriends local boys playing casually in a vacant lot adjacent to a junkyard -
a junkyard wherein a legendary monster guard dog, "the Beast" (cleverly
glimpsed in bits and pieces as a horrific menace in outsized-creature puppetry)
has a habit of intercepting and hoarding fouls over the fence.
