25-02-2025
'Sandlot' star Patrick Renna on new book, why 'Smalls is still killing Ham' 30 years later
'Sandlot' star Patrick Renna on new book, why 'Smalls is still killing Ham' 30 years later
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Patrick Renna on 'The Sandlot' legacy and his new baseball kids book
From "The Sandlot" to storytelling, actor Patrick Renna shares why baseball, friendship and nostalgia inspired his first kid's book.
USA TODAY
More than three decades after 'The Sandlot' swung for the fences, Scotty Smalls (Tom Guiry) is still striking out with Hamilton 'Ham' Porter (Patrick Renna).
The actors, who played one continuous game of baseball under the watchful eye of a Mastiff named The Beast in the 1993 movie, have a group chat, with 'a lot of juice in there,' Renna, 45, says. Guiry is 'a big meme-er and it's really obnoxious,' he jokes. 'He doesn't sleep, and you'll get these crazy memes at 2 a.m. He's literally killing me 30 years later. Smalls is still killing Ham.'
Renna, unforgettable as the smack-talking catcher who will diss you for mixing 'your Wheaties with your mama's toe jam,' has written a children's book. 'A Little Slugger's Guide to the Unwritten Rules of Baseball and Life' is available now and gives readers 20 life lessons inspired by America's favorite pastime.
'Life is a game, isn't it?' Renna says. 'But baseball, specifically, is the sport I know so well.'
Renna grew up playing Little League in Boston, and then booked 'The Sandlot' after his second audition ever. In his 30s, his softball teammates would quote the film mom and tell him to 'get dirty." Today Renna's two children play ball, and he coaches, "so that was a very easy thing to find the kind of corollaries there and (the book) sort of just flowed.'
The book opens with a rule picked up on the Salt Lake City set of 'The Sandlot': 'Always be ready.' Renna remembers a time he had to put that into practice while filming. The scene in which Ham swaps barbs with a rival baseball team was originally written for Benny 'The Jet' Rodriguez (Mike Vitar), Renna says. He remembers about an hour before the scene, director David Mickey Evans 'came in my trailer ... threw the script at me dramatically and said, 'This is yours, kid. Get off book. You've got an hour.''
Enter Ham to save the day and eviscerate the other team with words. Renna's comedic performance is the stuff MVPs are made of, Guiry praises.
'I rewatched the movie not too long ago with my daughter,' says the actor who brought the awkward Smalls to life. 'And it was the first time I actually sat back and (saw) Pat's deliveries on a lot of things are just amazing.
'When I read the script, it wasn't funny,' Guiry adds. 'But his delivery was what was funny, and I thought he was just perfect in the role.'
So to be legendary, 'it's up to you to always be ready for what the day might bring,' Renna writes. 'And who knows, it just might change the trajectory of your life.'
Renna also advises, 'Practice isn't optional' (Rule No. 3), to 'Keep Swinging' (Rule No. 7) and that 'Failure is part of the game (and it's a part of life)' (Rule No. 12). And he emphasizes the importance of, 'Rule No. 18: Give it your all,' while drawing on some enlightening words from Bryan Cranston.
'He said as an actor, when you go into that audition, you give it your all and you put everything you possibly can into that audition,' Renna says. 'And the second that door closes you leave it all behind. Because it's now out of your hands. And being on the other side, and casting as a producer, casting people I've seen that to be true. It really is out of your hands in those moments. But if you give it your all, that's all that matters.'That kind of knowledge? We'll gladly have s'more of that.
