The Sandlot

A theatrical home run during its original release in 1993, The Sandlot—writer-director David Mickey Evans's non-condescending look at childhood baseball—bows on Blu-ray for this 20th anniversary edition. Set in 1962, the plot has non-athletic Scotty (Tom Guiry) uprooted by his mother's remarriage and relocated to a California town. Scotty befriends local boys (all of the juvenile actors cast were deliberate unknowns) who play ball in a vacant lot adjacent to a junkyard—where a legendary monster guard dog, “the Beast” (neatly glimpsed in oversized puppetry), has a habit of intercepting and hoarding foul balls that come over the fence. After Scotty loans the ball-deprived kids his feared stepfather's prized possession—an autographed baseball—the kids lose it to the dreaded Beast's lair, cueing a lengthy showdown. This beloved sports classic slides into home here with only bush-league extras: a vintage behind-the-scenes featurette, and a bundle of mock baseball cards commemorating the characters (likely to disappear, Beast or no Beast). Interesting fact: The Sandlot set a legal precedent when Evans's childhood pals sued him for fictionalizing them without a payoff, only to have their claims dismissed by California courts. Highly recommended. (C. Cassady)