Monday, November 25, 2019

# 14 “The Sandlot” movie tour- Salt Lake City and Ogden Utah


“You’re killing me, Smalls!”

One of my all-time favorite baseball movies is “The Sandlot”. The movie is set in California but I recently found out much of the movie was filmed in the Salt Lake City, Utah area. So we were able to visit some of the locations this past summer.

We started out on a very hot day just like some in the movie.    


Our first stop was the little league field at Rose Park.  We first parked in the lot next to a baseball field. The field looked fairly new, and turned out to be the wrong field but we took some pictures and found 7 cents laying on the ground almost enough to buy a 98 cent baseball.  We noticed another field in the distance and walked a ways and found the older field which was next to the other parking lot. 


We immediately knew it was the actual field we were looking for.  Rose park field basically looked the same today except for the new advertising. This was where they took on the little league team and “kicked the crap out of those guys.”


Our second stop was the Sandlot.  Most of the movie was here including losing the baseball signed by ”Some lady named Ruth. Baby Ruth.” and getting that ball back, trash talking including “you play ball like a girl” and of course so much baseball.  Now days there’s not much to see just a little open area between houses.

Small's house


Benny's house

Next was Small’s and Benny’s houses. We just drove by for a couple pictures.  Multiple scenes during the movie were here. This was where early on when smalls just moved in and was unpacking, where Smalls tried to learn to play catch with his step dad and Benny inviting Small’s to the Sandlot.                    


 
               
After this we stopped at Liberty Park and had a nice walk around. The park was where the Founder’s day celebration was held. This was briefly shown when they were being chased by the dog after getting the Babe Ruth ball back. They then ran through the picnic and flipped the cake. I’m not sure what part they ran through.
                               

  

Our last stop in Salt Lake City was the Vincent Drugtore which was where they bought the 98 cent baseballs. We drove by for a couple pictures but the place looked like it was empty/closed and according to google is permanently closed.


Our final stop was the next day at the pool in Ogden, UT.  The pool was similar now days but they have added a slide and the pool had a different name. This was the pool scene that everyone remembers where “We got banned for the pool forever that day” I didn’t remember until we rewatched the movie but while being chased by the dog they go through the pool again with little kid saying big doggie! Then they crossed a bridge and river just like we did.

This was a great adventure and maybe the best yet. I had so much fun seeing all these places which brought back great memories of one of my favorite movies.