By sarcaustic











About a week or so ago, I was watching perennial 90s classic, The Sandlot. I’ve watched it tons of times. And with a lot of movies from one’s childhood, you might think about where the actors are currently. Sometimes they continue acting. While others do a few movies and leave acting for a normal life.

One thing that’s kind of fun is when a movie gives a short projection of the various characters’ futures. Thinking about the movie’s future and the actor’s actual future, I got to wondering about a possible connection between the two.

Hypothesis The ending for the 9 main characters of The Sandlot inversely predicted their future success outside of the movie.



Let’s get right into it.





Benjamin Franklin “Benny the Jet” Rodriguez

Pro baseball player for the LA Dodgers– 10/10

What kid could want more than to be paid to play a game? His (and Smalls a little bit later) was the only futures that were shown in the movie as opposed to being voice overs.





Hamilton “Ham” Porter

Pro Wrestler – The Great Hambino – 6/10

With the fracturing of the top Wrestling companies over the past decade, my guess would be at this point, he’d be in a 2ndor 3rd tier company. He’s no Stone Cold Steve Austin.





Michael “Squints” Palledorous

Married Wendy Peffercorn and had 9 kids. Bought the local drugstore – 9/10

Wendy Peffercorn was a total babe. He’s probably living the easy life, keeping things low-key with the fam.





Alan “Yeah-Yeah” McClennan

Shipped off to Military school => one of the pioneering developers of bungee jumping – 7/10

Military school prolly sucked. But he’s gotta be making bank after co-inventing bungee jumping.





Scott “Scotty” Smalls





Baseball Announcer – 4.5/10

Seemingly good, but sort of pales in comparison to most of the rest.





Kenny DeNunez

played Triple-A ball. Owns his own business / coaches a little league team his kids are on – 6.5/10

Totally vague. Doesn’t say what his business is. No choice but to low-ball his ending score, even with the decent run at semi-pro baseball.





Bertram Grover Weeks

“…got really into the ‘60s and no one ever saw him again.” - 2.0/10

The drugs might have been fun for a little bit, but he in all likelihood ended up dead somewhere. It all started with that Chew he brought to the carnival.





Timmy Timmons

Architect – Invented mini malls with brother Tommy. They Became Millionaires – 9.5/10

Cool job, tons of dough.





Tommy “Repeat” Timmons

Contractor – Millionaire – 8.0/10

Not really sure what his job is, but he’s rich, so whatevs.





The Scale



Taking the 9 Sandlot kids in rank order, we can start to predict what their futures hold for them. Instead of basing the scale on the “x out-of-10” model, I’ll base them against each other.



Best endings





Benny the Jet – 10

Timmy – 9.5

Squints – 9

Tommy (Repeat) – 8

Yeah-Yeah – 7

Kenny – 6.5

Porter – 6

Smalls – 4.5

Bertram – 2



So, by this scale, Bertram, Smalls and Porter should have the most success since the movie was released, with Benny, Timmy, and Squints having fell off the face of the earth. Lets get to the results.





Grant Gelt as Bertram







Well, it looks like the Sandlot ending was a good predictor of his future. After a few single episode stints on Boy Meets World, Saved by the Bell: New Class, Hey Arnold, and a few other shows, he succumbed to the drugs as foretold. He hasn’t been working since 1996 (barring one TV role in 1999).





I give this 1 LSD stamps out of 10.











Tom Guiry as Smalls



After that first summer at the Sandlot, wearing a hat with the longest recorded brim in history, Smalls went on to have quite a career in acting. He’s been in over 30 production and is still working today. I’m willing to bet right now that he’s one of the few players on that dirty diamond that is still acting.





Smalls, you get 4 abnormally long brims out of 5.











Patrick Renna as Porter





I think I’m 2 for 3 in for my Sandlot Theorem (damn you Bertram). Porter is one of the better examples of crappy ending / better career. Sure you don’t really see him, but he’s been consistently working since the movie. His most visible recent role was probably the Sobe commercials. Not the flashiest career, but atleast he’s working.





Ham gets 76 Sobe lizards out of 100











Brandon Quintin Adams as Kenny





Ray J, I mean Kenny, had a slightly different career than the other actors. While most of them had Sandlot as one of there first jobs, Adams went into this movie mid-career, having Mighty Ducks been release only a few years prior. After that, there were a bunch of TV show appearances and some movies, including Mighty Ducks 2, which he shared with another Sandlot alum to later be named. Work slowed down around 2000, but I think there’s some gas left in the tank.





DeNunez gets 3 athletes known for playing two sports out of 7.











Marty York as Yeah-Yeah

&



Well, I’m not sure really where to go with this. The initial internet detective-ry uncovered a short-lived acting career with some voice over work. His IMDB page has what seems like an updated headshot. But after some googling, shit got real.



He went from child actor, to possibly reviving a 13 year acting dry spell, to an alleged domestic abusing meathead. I tell ya, I’ve seen it a million times.



Whatever man. Good luck.





Yeah yeah gets 3.7 creatine cannisters out of 14













Shane Obedzinski as Tommy





The Sandlot Theorem strikes gold! Tommy, a millionaire by the end of the movie hasn’t worked in acting since that one fateful summer.







My 9th degree blackbelt in google searching has failed me on digging up any other info on this kid.







Shane O’ gets 2 non-descript facebook profile pics out of 26.











–







Chauncey Leopardi as “Squints





Well, this is a tough one. Financial success wise, Squints didn’t have the best future. Otherwise, he was one of the tops. So, strictly on the number scale, his real life future goes against The Sandlot Theorem in that he got a lot more work after the movie. Nothing really huge, I guess. Lots of TV roles, yet nothing since 2007.







I don’t consider this a mark against the Theorem. On both sides of the scale (movie future as opposed to actual future), he’s both a success and not so much. Bottom line is he got hitched to Wendy Peffercorn.







Squints… Your ass gets 6 Scheming Squints out 8.

–







Victor DiMattia as Timmy







Welp. Another big mystery. He fell off 2 years after Sandlot’s release with nary a detail on his existance…





Except this. A short film (Written / Directed by and starring grown-up Timmy) called Dinkins - http://vimeo.com/6092284









Watch it, if only for the end credits, which is flash animation at its finest.

Timmy gets 3 zombie themed images out of 9.







–







Mike Vitar as Benny





Off the dome, I know this kid was in Mighty Ducks 2 with DeNunez and even went on to act in the third Mighty Ducks. You’d expect him to go a lot further than any of the players, but oddly enough, he only had one small role on TV after D3. After that, he became a fireman, which is commendable, but ranks low on the Sandlot Theorem scale.



Regardless, B-B-B-Benny (and) the Jet gets 1 Flamboyant Elton Johns out of 4.

















The Rundown





Let’s revisit the rating I gave each personal ending and see how it matches with the theorem.



Benny the Jet – 10 (proven)

Timmy – 9.5 (proven)

Squints – 9 (undecided)

Tommy (Repeat) – 8 (proven)

Yeah-Yeah – 7 (proven)

Kenny – 6.5 (proven)

Porter – 6 (proven)

Smalls – 4.5 (proven)

Bertram – 2 (disproved)



So, comparing the scores to the actual futures, only two of the actors go against the theorem. And only one of the two clearly goes against my initial hypothesis.



In closing, I’d like to warn movies yet to be made. Please consider the burdens you put upon your actors potential futures. Setting the bar too high may set them up for future failure.