‘Sandlot’ stars who play Yeah Yeah, Smalls and Squints to celebrate classic coming-of-age film at the Fox

If it weren’t for a Hershey’s chocolate bar, actor Marty York might not have nabbed the role of Alan “Yeah Yeah” McClennan in the beloved coming-of-age film “The Sandlot.”

Before he was being hoisted over fences in search of lost baseballs, York was a stage actor from Northern California. While York was working on a show, the woman who ran the theater company suggested to his mother that she take him to Los Angeles.

His mother followed that advice, and with the help of an aunt who worked as an extras casting agent, York was cast as an extra in “Delirious,” starring John Candy.

One day on set, York was parroting another actor’s lines to his mother. Candy overheard and asked York’s mother if he had an agent. She said no, and Candy wrote down the number of an agent.

Through that agent, York auditioned for a Colgate toothpaste commercial, which he booked. The commercial producers then asked him to be in a Ragu spaghetti sauce commercial.

“That was my first taste of the business,” York said. “Then I auditioned for a year, and I didn’t get anything, and then I auditioned for ‘Sandlot.’ ”

York initially auditioned for the role of Betram, a rebellious member of the crew, with a monologue about the Beast, the scary dog next door, living under the lean-to.

After booking the role, York later heard from a casting person that they had someone else in mind for Betram. York thought his time with “The Sandlot” was over until the casting person said they were interested in seeing him for a bigger role, that of Yeah Yeah.

“He has a ton of energy, so make sure you bring energy to this,” the casting person said to York.

With that in mind, York’s mother took him to a liquor store and bought him a giant Hershey’s chocolate bar, which he ate right before his audition to get a sugar rush.

Long story short, he got the part.

Looking back, York thinks Yeah Yeah was a better match for his personality. And he wasn’t the only actor to switch roles; York said Chauncey Leopardi, who played Michael “Squints” Palledorous, originally auditioned for Yeah Yeah.

“We all read for different parts originally, and then they mixed and matched our personalities with the character,” he said. “At the end of the day, they made the right decision on who they casted for the different roles.”

Before “The Sandlot,” York hadn’t worked with any of the other young actors, which included Tom Guiry as Scott “Smalls/Scotty” Smalls, Mike Vitar as Benjamin Franklin “Benny” Rodriguez, Patrick Renna as Hamilton “Ham” Porter, Leopardi as “Squints,” Brandon Quintin Adams as Kenny DeNunez, Grant Gelt as Betram Grover Weeks, Victor DiMattia as Timmy Timmons and Shane Obedzinski as Tommy “Repeat” Timmons.

The cast’s camaraderie developed naturally as the filmmaking process went on. Before filming began, the cast worked on their baseball skills for a month in Los Angeles with Daniel Zacapa, who played Squints’ grandfather in the film.

Once they got to set in Glendale, Utah, York said it felt just like a summer camp. Off-camera moments helped the cast grow even closer, things like sneaking into a movie theater to see “Basic Instinct” and hanging out by the pool where Vitar’s older brother Pablo, who played the older Rodriguez in the film, would launch the boys off his shoulders and into the water.

Though the off-camera moments are more memorable, York does vividly recall filming the scene in which he is lowered over Mr. Mertle’s (James Earl Jones) fence in an attempt to retrieve a lost ball and comes face to face with the Beast.

To achieve this scene, the crew made a fiberglass cast of his body, which York still owns, and placed a catcher’s chest protector around the fiberglass, so it looks like that alone is holding him up.

The rope the kids used to lift him over the fence had steel cables running through it so while the stunt looked dangerous, York was fairly safe, though he does note he doubts a child actor would be allowed to do such a stunt today.

“The Sandlot,” which was directed by David Mickey Evans and written by Evans and Robert Gunter, was filmed in the summer of 1992 and released in 1993.

After filming “The Sandlot,” York would go on to appear in shows like “Boy Meets World,” “Wings” and “Sliders,” among others.

At the age of 17, everything came to a halt after York was involved in a 60 mph head-on collision.

The crash shattered his legs, and he was pronounced dead at the scene before being resuscitated a minute or two later.

After relearning how to walk, York decided to take a break from acting. Living 60 miles outside of Hollywood, York would go to school, leave early to drive to the city for filming or auditions, learning his lines in the car as he went. That led to his crash, and he knew that life was no longer sustainable.

After stepping away from the spotlight, York worked as a mortgage broker and at a coffee shop.

But the acting bug came crawling back after York reunited with the cast in 2013 to celebrate the film’s 20th anniversary. The reunion brought the cast and 1,000 fans to the baseball field in Glendale where filming took place.

“Going back to that field and seeing 1,000 people show up to the center field was amazing to me,” he said.

After that reception, York decided to give acting another shot. He got an agent and began booking commercials and roles on TV shows, including a guest role in an episode of the Emmy Award-winning comedy “Abbott Elementary.”

But “The Sandlot” is never too far away. York and his castmates have traveled around the country regularly since that 20th anniversary reunion meeting fans and sharing in the film’s nostalgia.

At one point, they toured every major baseball stadium in the country. At Dodger Stadium, the cast walked from the dugout to the position they played in the film and received a standing ovation from 60,000 fans.

“I look at the guys and I just was like, ‘Is this really happening now?’ ” he said. “I thought this was just something in my past that I did, and then traveling all over the United States for the past 10 years that we’ve been doing this, the touring really made me be like, ‘Wow. This movie is bigger than I even imagined it was.’ ”

“The Sandlot” brings York, Guiry and Leopardi to the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox on Saturday for a screening of the film followed by a Q&A moderated by Andrew Lenz.

As he shares stories of “The Sandlot,” York connects with people going through difficult times. In recent years, he’s experienced the death of his younger sister from an overdose and the death of his mother, who was murdered by the man she was seeing.

These stories, and insight from other child actors York has worked with, will appear in the documentary he is working on, “The Sandlot Legend,” which is due out next year.

“It’s a story of resilience, basically, is my story,” he said.

His “Sandlot” castmates helped him through those tough times, and he was there for the ups and downs of their lives as well, saying they really are family.

And it’s families York sees at these anniversary events, saying the audiences usually range in age from 8 to 70 years old. He’s proud to have been part of something that has become a generational classic and hopes it inspires a turn towards device-free childhoods.

“I look at things in the film now differently,” he said. “The film represents so many things. It represents inclusion, and it represents all-American kids playing an all-American sport, and the sport brought these kids together, who maybe wouldn’t even have hung out in the ’60s.

“I think it represents a way better time in America, too. It represents better times when kids would go out and play. They weren’t glued to their cell phones and their laptops. They would come in when the sun would go down … I hope that when kids watch ‘The Sandlot,’ they find that they can go outside and they can play with their friends and they don’t have to be glued to a device.”