"Benny the Jet" Rodriguez

I still remember it, I spent the whole summer of 1994 babysitting my neighbor's four kids, and do you know what their favorite VHS tape was? You guessed it, or maybe the title gave it away, The Sandlot! Remember? That movie set in 1962 about a boy dubbed "Smalls" as in "you're killing me Smalls!" who moved to a new neighborhood and happens upon a group of boys about his age that are obsessed with baseball. They teach him to play, get into some trouble along the way and get themselves into the biggest pickle that any young kid could imagine. What's more is that the movie was actually filmed in my home state! Ogden, Midvale and Salt Lake City, Utah are my stomping grounds. Of course I didn't find this out until high school, but you know my movie loving girlfriends and I absolutely HAD to go and swim at Lauren Farr Pool in Ogden the second that we found out that that was the pool that appeared in the film. I think that may have been one of my favorite scenes when Squints fakes drowning at the pool and the life guard, Wendy Peffercorn, that he is in love with jumps in, saves him, and gives him mouth to mouth. When he wraps his arms around her and tries to give her a big old kiss, she smacks him and stomps off.

Well the oldest of the children in my charge was obsessed with the movie so like clockwork, we watched it EVERY DAY. I remember those hot summer days when we would sit on the basement couch in front of the television. I'll have to admit, the obsession was contagious and I too looked forward to the daily flick. The one liners alone are enough now, as a mother, to make it totally enjoyable to sit and watch with my own kids. The cast is unforgettable, Scotty "Smalls", Michael "Squints" Paladorous, Hamilton "Ham" Porter, Alan "Yeah-Yeah" McClellan, Timmy Simmons and Tommy "Repeat" Simmons, Kenny DeNunez, Bertram Grover Weeks and that slobbery St. Bernard "the Beast". But mostly I looked forward to the character Benjamin Franklin "Benny the Jet" Rodriguez. Tall, dark, handsome, good at baseball, wore Converse sneakers, takes the new kid under his wing...he had it all in my 13 year old eyes. Saves the summer when he steals the ball back from The Beast and gets chased all over town. Sigh.... my hero!

His name is Mike Vitar, was born in 1978 and he started acting at the age of 12. He was discovered in line at a school carnival and the rest is history. I would guess that his role in The Sandlot is his most memorable, but he also acted in D2: The Mighty Ducks, D3: The Mighty Ducks and made several appearances in television shows. A really cool fact that I found was that Mike's real life older brother Pablo Vitar also acted in The Sandlot, playing the same character (Benny) when he got older. I'm guessing that was the future Benny that we saw when he made it to the Major Leagues and played for the L.A. Dodgers. Mike only acted from 1990-1997 and then retired from the big screen moving on to become a firefighter in Los Angeles, California where he lives with his wife, Kim, and their three children. I think that is a pretty noble career change.