This Is Where The Sandlot Was Actually Filmed

"You're killin' me, Smalls!" Set in the early '60s in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California, the classic movie "The Sandlot" portrays one perfect summer for a group of friends as they bond over their shared love of baseball. The coming-of-age comedy is all about team camaraderie and the special friendships forged in childhood. 

Starring Tom Guiry, Mike Vitar, Karen Allen, Denis Leary, and James Earl Jones (via IMDb), the movie has some iconic lines, a dog whose intelligence and strength borders on mythical, and plenty of great baseball sequences that remind viewers why the sport is "America's favorite pastime." While the stars of "The Sandlot" have changed a lot since the film premiered in 1993, the film continues to age well and remains a cult classic, as well as one of the most memorable baseball movies ever made. Even though the movie didn't do super well with critics, "The Sandlot" is a timeless grand slam (via Rotten Tomatoes).

The film's portrayal of summer in the San Fernando Valley pulls audiences into the story, but is this really where "The Sandlot" was shot? If you're looking for a brush-up on where "The Sandlot" was filmed, then you've come to the right place. We have the details below.

While the film's summertime setting does a great job of depicting sunny California, "The Sandlot" was actually filmed a few states away in Utah. Without a doubt, baseball is at the heart of the film, which wouldn't be the same without the titular sandlot where the young players spend their days hitting fly balls under the sun. 

When producers were searching for a location for the baseball field where most of the film's action takes place, they found an empty lot in the Salt Lake City neighborhood of Glendale that served their purposes perfectly. That vacant lot still exists to this day, although it's probably unrecognizable without all of the set dressing added to make it picture-ready (via ABC4 Utah). According to director David Mickey Evans, filming in Utah was the right move, especially when it came to building sets. "We built nothing," Evans told ABC4 Utah in an interview for the film's 28th anniversary. "We had some interiors inside some warehouse but everything else is an actual physical location. It was like the stars aligned."

"The Sandlot" also took advantage of locations like the Vincent Drug store in Midvale and the Valley Vista Park Community Pool in Ogden for the iconic public pool scenes, and all other locations were period-appropriate and helped set the film's tone. Years later, most fans have no idea that the California depicted in "The Sandlot" is actually the suburbs of Utah.