While a movie like Rookie of the Year might get some cheap laughs with some immature humor and insane concept, The Sandlot is more grounded in its approach to storytelling (Beast isn’t an actual beast, it’s just the kids’ imaginations).
And that’s because the movie was made just as much for the parents in the theater as it was for the kids who dragged them there in the first place.
The Sandlot wasn’t the only kids baseball movie to come out in the early to mid 1990s, but it is the only one that you see adults (and not just those of us who were kids when it came out) talk about it in such high regard.