I was watching TV the other night and the movie was on the MLB TV channel. So I decided to flip to the channel and then I was hooked like I was 10 years old playing baseball in my front yard again. Now let me start off with saying that this movie was one of my favorite movies as a child. With that being said lets get into the movie.The movie starts at the beginning of the summer in 1962 with the main character Scott Smalls. He just moved to Los Angeles and he doesn't have any new friends so he decided to follow a group of friends to a baseball field. So what he decides to do is ask his Step Father to teach him how to play catch. As he's learning to do so his Step Father throws the ball a little too hard at his plastic mitt and it breaks and the ball hits him in the eye.
Smalls then becomes friends with Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez. Rodriguez asks smalls if he likes baseball and he of course said yes to him. Benny takes Smalls to the drug store to buy a baseball and to meet all of his friends. Who start talking about Babe Ruth aka The Great Bambino but Smalls doesn't know who that is. Benny and the gang start naming off Babe Ruth's nicknames and Smalls says "Oh I thought you said The Great Bambi" then Hamilton Porter says "You mean that wimpy deer?"
So they continue on to the field to play ball. The gang doesn't think that Smalls is a good fit for their baseball team. Benny says that Smalls makes nine players so they're letting him play. So Benny goes up to bat and starts hitting to the fielders telling them plays that they want and Smalls is mesmerized by how well they know those plays. It gets to Smalls' turn and he completely misses the ball and he can't even throw the ball back to second base. All of his friends start laughing at him so he starts running to his bike and biking home because he is so embarrassed.
Smalls learns to play ball and they play almost everyday of the summer until one day. The day that Smalls changes the whole summer, he goes to get a baseball from home after they hit a home run over the fence of no return. When he returns with the ball from home he gets to bat and that is when it all changes, He hits a home run and with that the ball gets lost over the fence but this was no ordinary ball this was his Step Fathers signed Babe Ruth ball.
The rest of the week is spent trying to get that baseball back. Nothing works until finally the day comes that Benny was given the nickname "The Jet". He is given the nickname due to him hoping over the fence and getting the Babe Ruth ball out of the yard when the dog known as the Beast starts chasing him. Benny is the one and only person to ever out run the Beast and they go on a huge chase scene that ends up back in the yard where baseballs die. The Beast turns out to be very friendly but he just wanted to get out of the backyard more often. The movie ends with Smalls getting in trouble for taking the Babe Ruth ball and the fence getting put up again.
I give this movie 5 out of 5 baseballs:
