One of my favorite arguments to have with people after I’ve had a few pops is, “What is the best sports movie ever created?” I could continue on and write a 3,000 word dissertation on my arguments for my top five list but I’ll save you the rest of your weekend. However, my criteria for judging sports movies fall within five distinct categories:
- Quality of acting
- Storyline
- “Star power”
- Accuracy of game scenes
- And my favorite category — quotable lines.
Every time the argument of “best sports movie” comes up, ‘The Sandlot’ will forever be on my top five list. It scores highly in each of the five criteria listed above,
- Quality of acting – Awesome.
- Story line – Kids playing baseball and enjoying their summer break? Can’t get any better.
- “Star power” – James Earl Jones as a blind dude who used to be friends with Babe Ruth? I’m sold.
- Accuracy of game scenes – Anyone who’s played pickup baseball will vouch for the accuracy of the game scenes and the amount of trash that is talked.
- Quotable lines – Shit, where do I start?
And a line that I use on a daily basis:
Chicago Cubs super-utility man Ben Zobrist must be a fan of the Sandlot as well. If you recall, in 2016 Zobrist biked to Wrigley Field in full uniform in late September. A professional baseball player riding his bike to work was a clear nod to the Sandlot since damn near every scene in the movie was the kids riding their bikes to and from the field. However, if you look closer at Zobrist’s ride from 2016, you see another way he paid homage to the movie.
Yes my friends, those are the famous PF Flyers worn by none other than Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez. The black high-top shoes were very popular in the 1960s and hyped its slogan of “run faster, jump higher” and they were clearly the reason why Benny was able to get away from that big ass dog at the end of the movie.
Zobrist has now taken the PF Flyers a step further. Per Mark Gonzalez of the Chicago Tribune, Zobrist was spotted doing some conditioning drills after he was pulled from yesterday’s Spring Training game in a pair of black PF Flyers.
“But there was a twist. After completing his drills, Zobrist showed that his carefully designed shoe — complete with the PF Flyers logo — provided extra padding.
There’s not a shot in hell that Zobrist will EVER have the speed of Benny The Jet Rodriguez but I guess rocking some PF Flyers couldn’t hurt. To be honest, I could care less what shoe Zobrist wears as long as he changes his walk-up music for this season. Literally nobody wants to hear his wife scream, “BENNY, BENNY, BENNY” every single game as part of her rendition of “Benny and the Jets.”
