New in Town

Blanche: Have you found Jesus?
Lucy: Well, I didn't know he was missing.

Trudy: Oh, good. Electric's still on. Heat's LP. Tank's out back. Furnace is a Norge. The pipes are wrapped. Windows are two-paned. And there's a double layer of Owens Corning. Harwood. You got rugs to keep from freezing the bejesus out of your toes.

Harve: Oh hell, anything you can uncork, uncap or unscrew, I'll drink it.

Ted: Women like that just selling themselves as sex objects? What kind of a role model is that for a young girl?
Lucy: I think that any examples of strong successful young women are vital.
Ted: And that's how you measure success? By how sexy and provocative a woman can be? We'll pass on that. We listen to country, huh baby?
Lucy: Oh, the twangy drivel about the losers who drink beer and drive pickup trucks?

Ted: I like beer. I drive a pickup.
Lucy: I should have known.
Ted: You probably drive a new car for what it says about you, when what it really says about you, is how you bow down to the big corporation that made a gravy train out of this country.
Blanche: Would anybody like more gravy? Trudy? Kimberley?
Lucy: Industrial competition in a free market economy is what built this country.
Ted: No, robber barons built this country, and they did it from the blood of working folks. Hell, you steal somebody's car, you get thrown in jail. You steal somebody's life savings, you get to be a CEO.
Lucy: Well, I'm planning on being a CEO.
Ted: Well Blanche, you better count the silverware before she leaves.
Lucy: Oh don't even bother. I'm leaving now.
Ted: Not if I leave first. Come on, baby.
Blanche: I got Snickerdoodles with Tapioca.

Ted: I was 14 once so I know all about what's going on through your head... and your pants.

The Sandlot

Narrator: There is one all time greatest moment in the history of sports and it happened in the 1932 World Series. The story goes that in the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs, a full count, and the tying run on base, Babe Ruth raised his arm and pointed to the center field bleachers. No one believed it, because nobody had ever done it before. But The Babe was calling his shot. On the next pitch, the Great Bambino hit a towering 400-foot home run. And even though he'd been a hero before that, that's pretty much how he became a legend. Thirty years later, a kid named Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez became a neighborhood legend. It was in the greatest summer of my life, when he taught me how to play baseball, and he became my best friend. And he got me out of the biggest pickle I'd ever be in. I moved to the neighborhood about two weeks before school let out. It was the same summer that Dodger Maury Wills would break the stolen bases record. So with something that incredible going on, it should've started off with loads of great things happening for me, but it didn't. I was from another state, and I didn't have a single friend in a thousand miles. It was a lousy way to end up the fifth grade 'cause I had zip time to make friends before summer. And that's about where it all started.

Narrator: My real dad died when I was just a little kid. My mom had married Bill about a year before we moved to the Valley. At the time, he and I were still getting used to each other.

Narrator: I followed them to the sandlot once after school. I'd never seen any place like it. It was like their own little baseball kingdom or something. It was the greatest place I'd ever seen anyway. But they were good, real good. And all I had was a plastic toy mitt that my grandmother gave me for my birthday when I was six. But when I finally got up enough guts to go out there and try and make friends, I found out that they never kept score, they never chose sides, they never even really stopped playing the game. It just went on forever. Every day they picked up where they left off the day before. It was like an endless dream game. There was only eight of them, so they didn't have a whole team. So even though I didn't know how to play, I figured I could be the ninth man and maybe just stand in the outfield somewhere and take up space. Of course, if I'd known what was gonna happen when I got there, I probably never would've gone. If it wasn't for Benny, I never would've made a single friend that summer, 'cause all the rest of those guys thought I was a lost cause. Even before we became friends, Benny and me were connected, connected for the one moment later that summer, when I'd get us all into the biggest pickle any of us had ever seen.

Porter: I'm the Great Bambino.
Smalls: Who's that?
Porter: What?
Narrator: I had no idea who they were talking about.
Porter: What did he say?
Bertram: What, were you born in a barn, man?
Yeah, Yeah: Yeah what planet are you from?
Narrator: But there was no way I could let them know.
Squints: You never heard of the Sultan of Swat?
Kenny: The Titan of Terror?
Timmy: The Colossus of Clout?
Tommy: The Colossus of Clout!
Benny: The King of Clash, man.
Narrator: So I lied.
Smalls: Oh yeah, the Great Bambino, of course. I thought you said, the Great Bambi.

Squint: Come on, Benny, the kid is an l-7 weenie.
Yeah Yeah: Yeah, yeah. Oscar Mayer even. Footlong! Dodger dog! A weenie!
Benny: What are you laughing at, Yeah Yeah? You run like a duck.

Porter: Hey man, you want a s'more.
Smalls: Some more of what?
Porter: No, no, you want a s'more?
Smalls: I haven't had anything yet, so how can I have some more of nothing?
Porter: You're killing me, Smalls. These are s'mores stuff. Okay, pay attention. First you take the graham. You stick the chocolate on the graham. Then you roast the 'mallow. When the 'mallow's flaming, you stick it on the chocolate. Then, you cover it with the other end. Then you stuff.

Squints: The legend of The Beast goes back a long time, before any of us could even pick up a baseball. Back to a place called Mertle's Acres. It all started about, mmm, 20 years ago, when thieves kept stealing junk from Mertle's Acres junkyard. So Mr. Mertle, the guy who used to owned the place, got him this new pup from the dog pound. He fed him whole sides of beef, and turned the pup loose in the junkyard. And the pup was grateful. And so, in a few weeks, the pup grew into The Beast. And he grew big, and he grew mean, so that he could protect the junkyard with only one thing on his mind: to kill everyone that broke in. And he did, and he liked it a lot! The Beast was the most perfect junkyard dog that ever lived. A true killing machine. But after a while, the cops started getting phone calls from people reporting all the missing thieves, the ones The Beast had killed. It added up to about 120 - 173 guys. It's true. They never found a single body, not one. Some people say they all got away, but we all know what really happened. The Beast ate them. He ate them bone and all. The Beast was too good at his guard dog job, so the police said he had to be retired. My grandpa, Squidman Palledorous, was police chief back then. He ordered Mr. Mertle to turn his backyard into a fortress and chain up The Beast and put him under the house where he could never get out to eat children and stuff. And that's where he's been for twenty years. And that's where he'll be for the rest of his life. Because Mr. Mertle asked the cops how long he had to keep The Beast chained up like a slave, they said until for-ev-er. For-ev-er. For-ev-er. For-ev-er. And so, The Beast sits there under that lean-to, dreaming of the time when he can break the chain and get out, dreaming of the time he can chase and kill again.

Narrator: That night I learned that more than 150 baseballs had gone over that fence and not one of them was ever seen again, even when some brave kid worked up enough courage to peek over. Because when they went over, they vanished. I knew it was true. Because when I looked down in there, I didn't see a single solitary one.

Yeah Yeah: Squints was pervin' a dish.

Porter: I'm baking like a toaster cheeser!

Benny: Vote then. Anybody who wants to be a "can't hack it" pantywaist who wears their mama's bra, raise your hand.

Narrator: Benny would've played ball all day, all night, rain, shine, tidal wave, whatever. Baseball was the only thing he cares about.But of all the tings we ever did besides baseball, going to the pool is what he tolerated best. Even though none of us had ever seen a Playboy magazine, which we constantly lied about, we figured going to the pool was the next best thing to being there. It wasn't really the pool honeys like we said, because if any one of them had come up to any one of us, we'd have just peed our pants. We all went because, well, because Wendy Peffercorn was the lifeguard. Then one day it because too much for Michael "Squints" Palledorous. And he did the most desperate thing any of us had ever seen. Michael "Squints" Palledorous walked a little bit taller that day. We had to tip our hats to him. He was lucky she hadn't beat the crap out of him. We wouldn't have blamed her. What he'd done was sneaky, rotten and low... and cool. Not another one among us would've ever in a million years, even for a million dollars had the guts to put the move on the lifeguard. He did. He had kissed a woman, and he had kissed her long and good. We got banned from the pool forever that day. But every time we walked by after that, the lifeguard looked down from her tower, right over at Squints and smiled.

Narrator: There was only one night game a year. On the fourth of July, the whole sky would brighten up with fireworks, giving us just enough light for a game. We played our best then because, I guess, we all felt like the big leaguers under the lights of some great stadium. Benny felt like that all the time. We all knew he was gonna go on to bigger and better games, because every time we stopped to watch the sky on those nights like regular kids, he was there to call us back. You see, for us, baseball was a game. But for Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez, baseball was life.

Phillips: It's easy when you play with a bunch of rejects and fat kids, Rodriguez.
Benny: Shut you mouth, Phillips.
Porter: What did you say, crap face?
Phillips: I said you shouldn't even be allowed to touch a baseball. Except for Rodriguez, you're all an insult to the game.
Porter: Come on! We'll take you on right here, right now!
Phillips: We play on a real diamond, Porter! You ain't good enough to lick the dirt off our cleats.
Porter: Watch it, Jerk.
Phillips: Shut up, idiot!
Porter: Moron!
Phillips: Scab eater!
Porter: Butt sniffer!
Phillips: Pus licker!
Porter: Fart smeller!
Phillips: You eat dog crap for breakfast, geek.
Porter: You make your Wheaties with your mama's toe jam!
Phillips: You bob for apples in the toilet and you like it.
Porter: You play ball like a girl!
Phillips: What did you say?
Porter: You heard me.
Phillips: Tomorrow. Noon, at our field. Be there buffalo butt breath.
Porter: Count on it, pee-drinking crap face!

Porter: You know, if my dog was as ugly as you, I'd shave his butt and tell him to walk backwards.

Narrator: We were all walking on air that night. It had been a solid victory. In fact, we beat the crap out of those guys. So we all went to celebrate. And we did the stupidest thing any of us had ever done.

Narrator: A couple days after we all got over acting like big shots, we swore off the hard stuff forever and just stuck to Bazooka. But the day we all got back together for some baseball, was the day I got us into the biggest pickle of all time, and it all started with an omen.

Kenny: The Beast got it.
Timmy: You're dead as a door nail, Smalls.
Tommy: You're dead as a door nail, Smalls.
Timmy: Smalls, you mean to tell me that you went home and swiped a ball that was signed by Babe Ruth, and you brought it out here and actually played with it?
Tommy: Actually played with it?
Smalls: Yeah. Yeah, but I was gonna bring it right back.
Squints: But it was signed by Babe Ruth.
Smalls: Yeah. Yeah. You keep saying telling me that. Who is she?
Porter: What? What?
Kenny: The Sultan of Swat.
Bertram: The King of Crash.
Timmy: The Colossus of Clout.
Tommy: The Colossus of Clout.
All: Babe Ruth!
Porter: The Great Bambino!
Smalls: Oh my god! You mean that's the same guy?!
All: Yes!
Benny: Smalls, Babe Ruth was the greatest baseball player that ever lived. People say he was less than a god but more than a man. You know, like Hercules or something. That ball you just aced to The Beast is worth, well, more than your whole life, man.

Narrator: It was salt in an open wound. Even my own mom, a grown-up girl, knew who Babe Ruth was. I was dead meat. We had thought that that ball Benny had busted the guts out of meant something amazing was gonna happen. Now I just figured it meant my life was over.

Narrator: It was my last chance. So we quit messing around and pulled out all the stops. I collected every piece of erector set I had, and it finally became, science against nature.

Narrator: My life... was over. Just as Bill had finally warmed up to me, and asked me to be the man of the house, I had to knock a priceless chunk of history into the clutches of a monster. Great. I had a dream that night about a giant baseball, that was signed by Babe Ruth, falling out of the sky and hammering me into the ground like a railroad spike.I didn't know what that meant, but Benny had a dream that night too, and his was a lot more helpful.

Babe Ruth: Legends never die, kid.

Babe Ruth: Let me tell you something, kid. Everybody gets one chance to do something great. Most people never take the chance, either 'cause they're too scared or they don't recognize it when it spits on their shoes. This is your big chance, and you shouldn't let it go by. Remember when you busted the guts out of the ball the other day? Someone's telling you something, kid. If I was you, I'd listen.

Babe Ruth: Remember, kid. There's heroes and legends. Heroes get remembered, but legends never die. Follow your heart, kid, and you'll never go wrong.

Narrator: Only one kid in history had ever attempted what Benny was about to, and he got eaten. So we were worried, real worried, even when Benny brought out the secret weapon: shoes guaranteed to make a kid run faster and jump higher, P.F. Flyers.

Narrator: Even though Bill loved the Murderer's Row ball, he was still plenty mad about me having swiped his Babe Ruth autographed ball and ruining it. So I didn't feel too bad when he grounded me for a week instead of the rest of my life. Things worked out between me and him. And from then on, I didn't have any trouble just calling him Dad all the time. We all lived together in the neighborhood for a couple more years, mostly through junior high school, and every summer was great. But none of them ever came close to that first one. When one guy would move away, we never replaced him on the team with anyone else. We just kept the game going like he was still there.

Narrator: It was weird that Benny has said Babe Ruth was like the Hercules of baseball, and The Beast's name ended up being Hercules. None of us could ever figure out what that meant, but we were all amazed by it. I kept in touch with those guys over the years, and I found out that Yeah Yeah's parents shipped him off to military school. After the army, he became one of the pioneering developers of bungee jumping. Of course, we all know why. Bertram, well, Bertram got really into the '60s, and no one ever saw him again. Timmy and Tommy because an architect and a contractor. They started out small, designing playground equipment and prefabricated tree houses. But they became multimillionaires when they invented mini-malls. Squints grew up and married Wendy Peffercorn. They have nine kids. They bought Vincent's Drugstore, and they still own it to this day. Hamilton Porter became a professional wrestler. You know him as The Great Hambino. DeNunez played triple-A ball, but he never got to the majors.He owns his own business now, and he coaches a little league team that his sons play on called the Heaters. Hercules lived to be 199 years old, in doggy years. I was the last one to move away. But when I did, the sandlot was still there. After Benny pickled The Beast, his reputation spread all over town. From then on, he was known as Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez. And the nickname stuck with him for the rest of his life.