In: Celebrity, Celebrity Tales, Heartwarming, Inspirational, Movies, Pop Culture
Baseball, ‘Boy Meets World’, broken hearts: Our interview with Marty York
āHeroes get remembered, but legends never die. Follow your heart kid, you can never go wrong.ā Thatās one of the many iconic messages from 1993ās The Sandlot. Itās a film that continues to live on ā each and every summer capturing the hearts of baseball fans across the world.
I had the privilege to sit down with Marty York who portrayed Alan āYeah-Yeahā McClennan to chat about life, love, and the longevity of this classic film.
Chive: Today we are joined by Marty York. Youāve seen him in Boy Meets World, The Eric Andre Show... Thank you so much for being here. Howās it going?
Marty York: Good, man. Just took a little cat nap because Iāve been going nonstop touring here for like the past three months now.
Chive: Yeah, with the 30th anniversary.
Marty: Yeah, weāve been all over the country and just came back from the Baseball Hall of Fame out in Cooperstown, New York and itās crazy, man.
Chive: Well letās jump right in! Iām especially curious ā I recently spoke with Thomas Ian Nicholas from Rookie of the Year and I was wondering, did you actually play baseball growing up or was it something you had to embrace for the film?
Marty: I didnāt play baseball, I actually played soccer for about three years before I moved to Los Angeles. And actually, that was the first time I started playing baseball. I wasnāt good, you know? Like at first they took all the guys after we all got cast in the film ā they took us all to a field out here in Los Angeles. The guy who coached us was Squintsā grandpa in the scene where heās looking back in the black and white scene ā that was our coach, Daniel Zacapa.
Heās an actor. Heās been in a lot of stuff, but heās also a phenomenal baseball player. We worked with him for about, I would say about a month and a half, two months before we started filming. And everybody was kind of new at baseball, or there were a few that had played here and there but for the most part, none of us were really all that good. Mike was really good. Benny the Jet. He was already a very good baseball player. The rest of usā¦not so much.