The Sandlot: Heading Home(2007)

(THE SANDLOT 3)
SHORT VERSION:
Having learned some valuable lessons about friendship, teamwork, and the worth of the Sandlot, Tommy wins the All-Valley Little League Baseball Championship playing for the Sandlot team instead of Earl Needman’s team (as his history originally played out). This victory also saves the Sandlot from being demolished in favor of a condominium development that Needman was hoping to have built in its place. After Tommy takes a moment to shake the hand of the baseball coach from St. Agnus Preparatory School who came to watch him play (the school was where he got started on the path that led to his professional career), he runs back home to see his dying mother in her bedroom and happily tells her about his victory.

Seconds later, Tommy hears a tapping sound being made against the bedroom’s window, so he opens it up and sees that his teammate, Ryan, is right below it. Ryan holds up the 1963 Los Angeles Dodgers autographed World Series baseball that Tommy earlier found in Mr. Mertle’s old house (and was used by the Sandlot team as a lucky charm), and after telling Tommy that this belongs to him, he throws it up to him. However, Tommy loses sight of it in the light of the fireworks being shot off nearby to celebrate Independence Day, so the ball hits him in the head when it comes back down and knocks him out.

When Tommy regains consciousness, he finds himself lying in a hospital bed in the present day, having been taken there after he was knocked out by the baseball at the start of the film. He initially thinks that his trip back to the past was all just a dream, but he quickly discovers that not only was it not a dream, but the different decisions he made back then have altered his history, and for the better; he still had an outstanding professional baseball career, but rather than becoming an arrogant player who never showed any loyalty to the teams he played for, he stayed with the Los Angeles Dodgers his entire career and became a much-loved and highly respected player and teammate. Also, he got married to his girlfriend, Judy (unlike in his original timeline where he left her to go play for the New York Yankees), and fathered two children with her, and he has remained friends with the whole Sandlot team. Happy that he has become a much better person, Tommy takes a moment to think about his mother and repeats her words: “Good things to good people.”

Also, unlike how events played out in Tommy’s previous timeline, the Sandlot is still around, and to this day, the one thing that Tommy treasures the most is saving it.

LONG VERSION:
Tommy (Keanu Pires [child], Luke Perry [adult]) decides to take it upon himself to try to mold and coach the Sandlot gang into a well-rounded team so they can play in the All-Valley Little League Baseball Tournament, but he soon tells the team that, if they are going to be a real team, they are going to need some equipment like bats, balls, a new glove for Wings (Ryan Drescher), and some pads for D.P. (Cole Heppell). One night, the Sandlot gang show up at Tommy’s house and tell him that they are going to get the equipment they need from Mr. Mertle’s house, which is now abandoned but is said to contain a secret stash of old baseball gear. They search Mertle’s house until they find a hole in the wall covered by a New York Yankees baseball cap, and Tommy looks inside of it and finds and pulls out a baseball sitting on a small pedestal in there, which turns out to be signed by all the players of the 1963 World Series-winning Los Angeles Dodgers. However, removing the ball from its pedestal activates a trigger that results in some booby traps getting sprung on the kids, bombarding them with the hidden baseball equipment and also turning on a pitching machine that fires baseballs at them. The team flees the house, but Tommy takes the Dodgers ball with him before he goes.

The next morning, the team meets up with Tommy at his house again, but this time, they have all the baseball stuff from Mertle’s house, having gone back there and collected it all that morning. Tommy shows them the Dodgers ball and what is written on it, and eventually, they all decide to keep the ball as a “lucky charm” because Tommy believes that Mertle’s spirit was trying to tell them something. Later that day, Benny Rodriguez (Danny Nucci) – who is now a player for the Dodgers but is currently nursing a knee injury – appears at the Sandlot to offer his help to the boys, and he and Tommy improve their skills further and show them how to work together as a team, plus Benny remarks to Tommy that it looks like he has had a change of heart about some things compared to when they first met a few days ago.

The Sandlot gang enter the baseball tournament and perform well enough to reach the finals, where they are scheduled to face the team sponsored by Earl Needman’s (Paul Jarrett) real estate company for the championship. Thinking that, if he had Tommy on his team, the Sandlot gang will have no chance of emerging victorious, Needman meets with Tommy and his mother, Sara (Sarah Deakins), at his house and attempts to persuade him to switch over to his team. Recalling how he won the championship playing for Needman’s team, in addition to the fact that Needman was the one who brought in the coach from St. Agnus Preparatory School to watch him play in that game and how that started him down the path to his professional career, Tommy agrees to play for Needman. That night, at a city council meeting to determine if the Sandlot will be left where it is or be demolished in favor of Needman’s company building condominiums in its place, the council’s chairman announces that the council is pushing this decision back to the next quarter because the vote on the matter ended up as a dead tie every time they took it. Refusing to accept this, Needman tells the council and the townspeople that he has a possible solution to this problem. He first brings up how the Sandlot team will be playing his team for the tournament championship on Independence Day, two days hence, and then he puts forward a challenge to Squints (Chauncey Leopardi), the baseball commissioner whose drug store sponsors the Sandlot team: If his team wins, then his company will get to build and develop on the Sandlot, but if the Sandlot team wins, the Sandlot will stay where it is. Squints accepts his challenge, but on the condition that the game must be played on the Sandlot. The council gives this arrangement their unanimous approval.

While hanging out with his teammate Ryan (Cainan Wiebe) – who hasn’t spoken a word since his father died four years ago – at the Sandlot the next day, Tommy rehearses a speech in front of him that he intends to give to the others explaining why he is going to play for Needman in order to secure his successful future and that he can’t risk it all for the Sandlot. This prompts Ryan to finally break his silence and tell Tommy that maybe HE is the one who shouldn’t speak for a while. He then gets on his bicycle and starts pedaling away, but Tommy stops him and asks him why he said what he just said. Ryan replies that he played with them and taught them all this great stuff about baseball, playing together, and being a team, and now he is just going to up and leave them. Tommy replies that he has to, but Ryan tells him that he doesn’t have to do anything. Ryan then calls Tommy a crock before adding that he and the others looked up to him and that he made them feel for the game, and he thought that they were showing him something as well: Friendship. He then continues on his way.

The next day, while Squints is getting the Sandlot ready to host the championship game, Benny stops by to talk to him and lend a hand. Tommy then arrives, and while he keeps himself hidden from their view, he listens to them as they talk about their days playing baseball at the Sandlot. He eventually hears Danny remark to Squints that he values the Sandlot and the games they played here with their friends more than playing in the major leagues, and after hearing that and then thinking about what Ryan had told him about friendship, Tommy quietly heads back home and does some serious thinking about it all. The next morning, Tommy tells his mother that he doesn’t know if he should go to the game because he needs to be here with her (since she is dying from cancer), and she replies that she is so grateful to have such a wonderful son like him. She then tells him to go play the game that he loves and that “good things happen to good people.” This convinces him to go, but he promises her that he will come straight home as soon as the game is over.

Before the game begins, the St. Agnus coach, Bill (John Kruk), shows up, and Needman introduces Tommy to him. As the Sandlot team is cursing Tommy for turning his back on them, in addition to complaining about how they are now minus a player and will likely lose, Ryan decides to speak to the others for the first time. He first tells them that he knows how much they all love baseball, and if they give up now, then they will be saying goodbye to the Sandlot forever. He then says that Tommy taught them a lot about baseball skills, so instead of being mad at him, they should show him what he failed to learn from them: How to play the game they love. With Benny’s encouragement, the Sandlot team gets behind Ryan’s idea. Having overheard Ryan, Tommy tells Needman that he needs to talk to him now, but Needman just orders him to take his position on the field and tells him that he can talk to him after the game. When Tommy repeats his request and Needman responds by repeating his order in a harsher tone, Tommy walks over to the Sandlot team, and after first apologizing to them for abandoning them, he tells them that he has decided to throw away his future career in order to do the right thing and play ball with his friends, because he would rather lose a game with his real team than win one for all the wrong reasons. The gang decides to take him back, and Tommy takes off his jersey and throws it at Needman.

At the bottom of the ninth inning, the Sandlot team is leading 5 to 4, and Needman’s team is the last to bat. Before they resume gameplay, Tommy shows his team the Dodgers ball and tells them that they will be using it in this inning for luck. Though the Sandlot team easily strikes out the first two opposing batters, the next batter manages to hit the ball and get to first base, and then Needman’s son, E.J. (Alexander Ludwig), steps up to the plate to take his turn. E.J. hits a ball that looks like it will be a home run, but just before it can go over the outfield wall, Tommy – who is serving as an outfielder – manages to leap up and catch it (as his history played out and is what spurred Bill to recruit him for St. Agnus), rendering E.J. out and winning the championship for the Sandlot team. Bill remarks to Needman that Tommy is going to be an all-star, and Tommy tells his teammates that, while this has been the best game of his life, he has to go back home now because he needs to see his mother. After giving the Dodgers ball to Ryan, he starts to head back to his house, but he takes a moment to shake Bill’s hand before he goes. The rest of the team then celebrates with the championship trophy.

Tommy hurries up to his mother’s bedroom, and after he tells her about his team’s victory, she replies that he always knew how to make her proud. Seconds later, Tommy hears a tapping sound being made against the bedroom’s window, so he opens it up and sees that Ryan is right below it. Ryan holds up the Dodgers ball, and after telling Tommy that this really belongs to him, he throws it up to him. However, Tommy loses sight of it in the light of the fireworks being shot off nearby to celebrate Independence Day, so the ball hits him in the head as it comes back down and knocks him out.

When Tommy regains consciousness, he finds himself back in the present day and lying in a bed in a hospital, having been taken there after he was knocked out by the baseball that struck him in the head earlier in the film. He initially thinks that his return to the past was all just a dream, but he quickly discovers that, not only was it not a dream, but the different decisions he made back then have altered his history, and for the better. First, he notices that his Sandlot teammate, Q (Chris Shields), is now working as the doctor tending to him, and Q yells out to some of the many people waiting in the hallway for news about Tommy’s condition that he is awake. Benny (who became the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers in both timelines) then enters the room, and through a conversation that he and Tommy have, Tommy finds out that he did not become an arrogant and disloyal player like how his original timeline played out. Instead, he played with the Dodgers his entire professional career and even became the team captain, plus he is highly respected and loved by his teammates. Judy (Leila Johnson) – the loving girlfriend that he broke up with years ago in his original timeline in order to pursue greater fame and fortune with the New York Yankees – then comes into his room, and he finds out that he stayed with her and married her. He also finds out from her that they have two children, after which they both come into the room and hug him. An adult Ryan (Dean Hinchey) then walks in and gives him the 1963 Dodgers ball, and after we find out that he now runs his own sports radio show, the other now-adult members of the Sandlot team come into the room to say “hello” to Tommy, showing that he had stayed friends with all of them. Happy that he has become a much better person, Tommy takes a moment to think about his mother and repeats her words: “Good things to good people.”

In a reversal of tone and words from the opening scene, Danny tells the Beyond the Glory documentary show that Tommy (still) had an outstanding career playing only for the Dodgers, and he turned down big money offers from other teams over the years in order to stay with them, and he remarks that Tommy could be the most loved player, teammate, and leader that the sport has ever seen. He also remarks that, despite all the success that Tommy has had, the thing that he treasures the most to this day is saving the Sandlot (which, unlike how Tommy’s original timeline played out, is still around today).