Trivia / Rookie of the Year

• California Doubling: The team's road game at Dodger Stadium was actually filmed at Comiskey Park, the other crosstown Chicago baseball stadium.
• Directed by Cast Member: Daniel Stern makes his directorial debut alongside playing supporting role Phil Brickma.
• Doing It for the Art: John Candy as Cubs announcer Cliff Murdoch. He did the role as a favor to Stern (who was struggling to cast the role) and because he wanted to appear in the movie.
• Dueling Works: Most directly with The Sandlot and the following year's Little Big League and Angels in the Outfield. It also had to contend with being released alongside the seemingly never-ending slew of coming-of-age or family-/kid-centric summer movies that were popular in The '90s.
• Playing Against Type: Gary Busey plays a sane, eventually warm father figure and not villainous or crazy, like 99% of his résumé. It was an attempt to get back to the "nice guy" roles he had early in his career like Buddy Holly.
• Throw It In!: When Henry's mom celebrates Henry scoring his first run, she smacks her head on an overhead light. This was unplanned; Amy Morton legitimately smacked her head on it. You can see her start to mouth "Oh, shit" as the scene begins to cut, which is funny because that scene also contained the film's actual precision "Shit"-strike".

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