The Sandlot Cast: Where The Actors Are Now
For many kids growing up in the early 1990s, "The Sandlot" was one of the definitive sports movies. Set in 1960s Southern California, it revolves around a group of kids who gather to play baseball in an abandoned lot in their suburban neighborhood. But their light-hearted escapades turn chaotic when the newest member of their ranks accidentally offers up a priceless baseball autographed by Babe Ruth, not realizing its significance, which is promptly hit over the fence into a neighboring junkyard. To get it back, they'll have to tangle with the Beast, a (supposedly) bloodthirsty monster of a dog who (allegedly) eats burglars as though they were kibble.
Over the years since its release, "The Sandlot" has swung its way into the heart of pop culture, basking in the warm glow of '90s nostalgia and developing a reputation of one of the greatest baseball movies of all time. While some of its stars have faded into obscurity (and even controversy), others are still working in Hollywood to this day.
Here's what the cast of "The Sandlot" is up to now.
Tom Guiry - Scotty Smalls
When we first meet the kids of "The Sandlot," it's through the eyes of Scotty Smalls, a nerdy young boy who has just moved into the neighborhood and is trying to make friends. He's hoping that he can join the baseball team, but there's just one problem: He doesn't know the first thing about baseball, let alone actually playing it. Scotty was played by the 12-year-old Tom Guiry in his film debut.
After starring in "The Sandlot," Guiry continued his acting career throughout the 1990s and 2000s, appearing in "Lassie," "Black Hawk Down," "Mystic River," and "The Revenant." During the past decade or so, Guiry has faced various legal troubles: In 2013, he was arrested for assaulting a police officer in Houston after being denied access to a flight due to his alcohol consumption, and in 2024, he was arrested for violent and threatening behavior against his neighbors, including throwing a dumbbell at their car and approaching their home with a knife. In July 2024, he pled guilty and was sentenced to time already served.
Mike Vitar - Benny 'The Jet' Rodriguez
If you were a kid growing up in the early '90s and didn't have a crush on Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez, well, you might just be the only one. Benny (Mike Vitar) was the bona fide hero of the story and a teen idol in the making. Although he made quite an impression in "The Sandlot" and lingers in the fond memories of many a millennial, Mike Vitar's acting career was shortlived. He made his on-screen debut in 1991, two years before "The Sandlot" was released, and worked as an actor until leaving Hollywood in 1997.
During those years, his most well-known performance aside from "The Sandlot" was as Luis Mendoza in "D2: The Mighty Ducks" and "D3: The Mighty Ducks." After leaving the entertainment industry, Vitar trained first as an EMT and then as a firefighter — he currently works for the Los Angeles Fire Department, living in California with his wife and three children.
In 2015, he and a fellow off-duty firefighter were charged with assault, after attacking a 22-year-old man they believed to be a threat to local children, after handing out Halloween candy. In a bid to avoid jail time, he took a deal to have the charges reduced to misdemeanor battery, resulting in 90 days of community service, anger management classes, and restitution payments to the victim. Although many of his "The Sandlot" costars have made appearances at fan events for the film over the years, Vitar has largely stayed away from the spotlight since his on-screen retirement at the age of 19.
Patrick Renna - Hamilton Porter
Back in the early 1990s, Patrick Renna was basically your go-to actor for comedic relief in kids' sports movies. In "The Sandlot," he plays Hamilton "The Babe" Porter, the team's catcher who is absolutely obsessed with Babe Ruth (and who gets to utter the film's most famous line, "You're killing me, Smalls!")
Although "The Sandlot" was his film debut, he had many similar roles throughout the decade. In 1995, he played goalie Larry Musgrove in "The Big Green," a film about a misfit team of youth soccer players that saw him reunited with his "The Sandlot" co-star Chauncey Leopardi.
Renna continued acting throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, appearing in films such as "P.U.N.K.S.," "Recess: School's Out," and "National Lampoon's Dorm Daze." Although his career has tapered off in recent years, he's still acting. He featured in two episodes of the critically acclaimed but sadly canceled "GLOW," and in 2024, he appeared in "Monster Summer" and "You Gotta Believe." He also makes periodic appearances reprising his role as Ham, like when he recently played a 2025 game with the Savannah Bananas as The Great Hambino, to rapturous applause from the crowds.
Chauncey Leopardi - Squints
Chauncey Leopardi as Michael "Squints" Palledorous is one of the most memorable characters in "The Sandlot" — his dramatic retelling of the legend of the Beast and his delivery of the word "forever" linger in our minds decade later. Leopardi was a familiar face in kids' entertainment during the early '90s, with appearances in "Father of the Bride," "Casper," (he's one of the little boys at the beginning of the film who goes to the haunted mansion to take a picture of a ghost and then runs away like a baby when he actually sees one), "The Paper Brigade," "The Big Green," and "Boy Meets World."
As he grew up, he continued to act into the late 1990s and early 2000s, with recurring roles on "Freaks and Geeks" and "Gilmore Girls," in addition to reprising his role as a grown-up Squints in "The Sandlot: Heading Home." He's only acted sporadically since then, with his most recent performance in the 2024 animated film "Life with Quincy 3."
Marty York - Yeah-Yeah
When Marty York appeared in "The Sandlot" as Yeah Yeah, the boy on the sandlot team who starts most of his sentences with the phrase "yeah yeah," he was making his feature film debut. Within the next few years, he had acted on "Boy Meets World," "Hey Arnold!," "Wings," and "Sliders." But his career took a downturn after the late '90s. In 1997, he was in a serious car accident that took years to recover from and effectively ended his acting career for more than a decade. In 2009, he was arrested on domestic violence charges after getting into an altercation with his girlfriend.
Since then, he appears to have turned his life around. York became a personal trainer and has stepped a toe back into the acting pool, especially with commercial work. In 2015, he appeared on "The Eric Andre Show," and two years later he was on "SMILF." He currently has one film in the pipeline, an action comedy called "Due Justice."
Brandon Quintin Adams - Kenny DeNunez
Out of all the child actors in "The Sandlot," Brandon Quintin Adams was probably the most established, having begun his acting career in the late 1980s. In addition to appearances on "Quantum Leap," "A Different World," and "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," Adams starred in the Wes Craven horror film "The People Under the Stairs" and the Michael Jackson anthology film "Moonwalker." By the time he was cast as Kenny DeNunez, the sandlot pitcher with a devastating heater, he already had an impressive list of credits to his name.
Adams worked consistently throughout the '90s, starring as Jesse Hall in "The Mighty Ducks" franchise, in addition to supporting turns on shows like "Boy Meets World" and "Sister, Sister." His most recent credit came in 2021, when he played the narrator in "The Resort," but he also has two projects currently in the works: an appearance in the upcoming crime drama "D.O.P.E. Unit" and the action film "War Dawgz."
Grant Gelt - Bertram Grover Weeks
Like many of his "The Sandlot" costars, Grant Gelt had a thriving career as a child actor during the early 1990s. In addition to playing Bertram Grover Weeks, the member of the sandlot gang who famously got super into the '60s and was never heard from again, Gelt was cast in "Blossom," "Eerie, Indiana," "Boy Meets World," "Tales From the Crypt," and "Hey Arnold!." His last acting role came in 1999, when he was featured in two episodes of "The '60s," a miniseries starring Julia Stiles and Josh Hamilton.
These days, he seems to have left Hollywood behind, aside from the occasional "The Sandlot"-related appearance. He's currently based in Nashville, where he is a founding partner and the CEO of Masscult, a creative agency that specializes in brand strategy. He's also CSO for Waxify, a Shopify app he helped develop in 2021, and a co-founder of Play Forever, a non-profit supporting youth athletes that was dreamed up by some of "The Sandlot" alum.
Shane Obedzinski - Tommy Timmons
Tommy is the younger of the two unfortunately-named Timmons brothers, and his nickname is "Repeat," on account of the fact that he mostly just repeats everything his brother says, much to his annoyance. The actor who played him in "The Sandlot," Shane Obedzinski, had a relatively short acting career during the early 1990s, but you may recognize him from his work in "My Girl," "Clarissa Explains It All," and "Swamp Thing."
But aside from a single 2017 credit — a short film called "Space Gila from the Deep," where he played the director of the CDC — Obedzinski hasn't acted since 1993, the same year that "The Sandlot" came out. Since then, he's gone down a different career path. In 2018, he became the co-owner of a pizza restaurant, Times Square Pizza Company, just outside of Tampa, Florida, where he's happy to chat with fans about his memories of making the film.
Victor DiMattia - Timmy Timmons
Timmy Timmons was one of the most mature members of the baseball team in "The Sandlot," with his precocious engineering knowledge coming in handy as the boys try to get the Babe Ruth ball back from the Beast. He was played by Victor DiMattia, who began his career in the mid-1980s at a very young age. By the time he turned up in "The Sandlot," he had already acted in "Married ... with Children," "Punky Brewster," "Family Ties," "Designing Women," "Growing Pains" (as the young version of Kirk Cameron's Mike), and "It's Garry Shandling's Show," in addition to appearances on film in "Turner & Hooch," "Radio Flyer," and the lead role of Dennis in a made-for-TV adaptation of "Dennis the Menace."
After appearing in the animated series "Adventures in Odyssey" and the family sitcom "A Peaceable Kingdom," both of which wrapped in 1995, DiMattia took a long hiatus as a performer. He didn't leave Hollywood for good, however, since he directed and produced a few short films in 2009 and made his acting return in 2018 with a role in the film "Get Married or Die." Since then, he has popped up in two other projects, with 2021's "Death Rider in the House of Vampires" and 2024's "Breakout." From 2017 to 2019, he also hosted a podcast called "Vic in a Box."
Art LaFleur - Babe Ruth
Art LaFleur is only featured in one scene in "The Sandlot," but it's one of the most memorable of the entire film. After days of attempting to get the Babe Ruth ball back from the clutches of The Beast, the boys are running out of ideas. But then, Benny has a dream that sees him visited by the ghost of Babe Ruth (Art LaFleur), who gives him one hell of a pep talk. "Heroes get remembered," he says, "but legends never die." Wise words from the Great Bambino.
LaFleur had been working for a decade and a half by the time he appeared in "The Sandlot," with roles in films like "Cobra," "Rampage," and perhaps most famously, "Field of Dreams," where he played another famous baseball player. Throughout the '90s and into the 2000s, his career only grew, appearing in "In the Army Now," "First Kid," "The Replacements," "A Cinderella Story," amongst many others. In 2021, LaFleur sadly passed away from Parkinson's Disease at 78 years old.
Denis Leary - Bill
Nowadays, Denis Leary is a pretty familiar face, but when he played Bill, Scotty's taciturn but well-intentioned stepdad, in "The Sandlot," he was still pretty new on the scene. His first stand-up special came out in 1993 — the same year as "The Sandlot" — which put him on the map as a comedian, a far cry from his restrained performance as Bill. Since then, he's had a thriving career in film and television. On the big screen, he appeared in "Demolition Man," "The Ref," "Wag the Dog," "A Bug's Life," and "The Amazing Spider-Man." He also played the role of Diego in the popular "Ice Age" franchise.
But Leary has had an equally big footprint on television. From 2001 to 2002, he starred as an NYPD detective in "The Job," and he followed this up with the firefighter drama "Rescue Me," which ran for seven seasons on FX. He had a recurring role on both "Law and Order: Organized Crime" and "Animal Kingdom," and he led the comedy series "The Moodys." Over the course of his career, he was nominated for four Emmy Awards, three for "Rescue Me" and one for the 2008 TV film "Recount," which focused on the contentious 2000 presidential election.
Karen Allen - Mom
In "The Sandlot," Mom is without a doubt Scotty's biggest advocate. She gives him permission to get into a little bit of trouble if it means that he will make friends in the neighborhood, understanding that being little heathens in public was just how kids in the '60s bonded with one another. When Scotty's stepdad brushes him off because he's got a lot of work today, Mom kindly but firmly pushes back, making sure that the two spend quality time together. She's a total saint, and we love her for it.
Karen Allen is perhaps best known for her work as Marion in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," but she also starred in films like "Starman," "Animal House," "Scrooged," and "Malcolm X." After appearing in "The Sandlot," Allen was featured in "The Perfect Storm" and the Oscar-nominated "In the Bedroom," as well as reprising her role as Marion in both "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny."
James Earl Jones - Mr. Mertle
Mr. Mertle, the junkyard owner whose presence looms large over "The Sandlot," is played by James Earl Jones. Maybe you've heard of him. The sandlot kids are terrified of him based solely on his reputation, but when they finally meet him at the tail end of the film, it turns out he's just a quiet blind man who lost his vision playing professional baseball decades earlier. He's a warm, kind presence who seems to just want people to talk baseball with, and in exchange for a baseball to replace Scotty's Babe Ruth heirloom, the kids are happy to oblige.
We probably don't need to spend too much time jogging your memory of where you've seen James Earl Jones before, since he's one of the most iconic actors of all time. He's famously the voice of Darth Vader in "Star Wars," but that's just the beginning of his long legacy.
Jones is one of only a handful of actors to earn an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony): a Tony for Best Leading Actor in a Play for "The Great White Hope" in 1969; a spoken word Grammy for "Great American Documents" in 1977; Emmys for "Gabriel's Fire" and "Heat Wave," both earned in 1991; and finally, a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Academy Awards in 2011. In 2022, the Cort Theatre in New York City was renamed the James Earl Jones Theatre to honor his contributions to the American theater. After a long life, Jones passed away at the age of 93 in September 2024.
Marley Shelton - Wendy
Marley Shelton, through no fault of her own, gets to be part of perhaps the ickiest subplot of "The Sandlot." She plays Wendy, a teenage lifeguard who Squints has a major crush on. One day, when the gang is at all the community pool on the hottest day of summer, he orchestrates a fake drowning so that she has to give him mouth-to-mouth, during which he "wakes up" and starts kissing her. It's not the greatest start to a relationship, but Squints is ultimately victorious, because we learn in the film's epilogue that they ended up getting married with a whole vanful of kids.
In the years since "The Sandlot," Shelton has had a thriving acting career, with performances in films such as "Pleasantville," "Never Been Kissed," "Sin City," "Scream 4," and "Scream" (2022). Her most recent appearances, though, have been on television. In 2024, she appeared in an episode of "Trackers," and in 2025, she had a three-episode arc on the new "Matlock."
For more nostalgic catch-up, you should check out "The Sandlot Forever" documentary on YouTube, or see the cast when they reunited a few years back on "TODAY" for the movie's 25th anniversary: