In the 1993 coming-of-age sports comedy film The Sandlot, The Beast is the legendary, fearsome dog that guards the backyard directly behind the neighborhood ball field. According to neighborhood legend whispered among the baseball players, the creature is a monstrous "giant gorilla-dog" that eats humans. The local kids believe that his owner, the notoriously reclusive Mr. Mertle, bought him from the pound to protect a local junkyard. Local myths claim that Mr. Mertle raised the pup on a steady diet of whole sides of raw beef to turn him into a perfect killing machine. Rumor has it that the giant canine swallowed nearly two hundred thieves whole, leaving absolutely no trace of their remains behind. The local police allegedly ordered the dog to be locked away forever beneath the house as a result of these terrifying disappearances. Throughout the film, the boys treat the backyard as an impenetrable fortress of doom and are utterly terrified of what lurks inside. Visually, the boys imagine him with massive claws and a giant, drooling jaw capable of tearing anyone to pieces. Whenever a baseball accidentally flies over the fence, it is instantly considered lost forever to the jaws of the creature. The stakes dramatically escalate when Scotty Smalls hits an irreplaceable baseball signed by Babe Ruth into the yard. The boys try several creative and mechanical contraptions to retrieve the ball, but the ferocious guardian destroys every single device. Driven by determination, the team captain, Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez, decides to bravely jump the fence to recover the ball himself. This initiates a thrilling, high-speed chase across town, during which the giant dog breaks his heavy chain and leaps over fences. The chase finally ends back at the sandlot when a heavy wooden fence collapses directly onto the pursuing dog. Showing incredible character, Benny and Smalls refuse to leave the animal trapped and work together to lift the heavy debris to save him. Once he is rescued, the terrifying illusion vanishes, revealing that the dog is actually an incredibly gentle and friendly English Mastiff. The boys discover that his real name is Hercules, and his fearsome reputation was entirely a product of childhood imagination. Instead of biting the kids, the massive dog affectionately licks Smalls' face and happily leads them to his secret stash of stolen baseballs. For the film production, this legendary character was brought to life using real Mastiffs alongside a giant animatronic puppet for the oversized scenes. Following the big reveal, Hercules is officially adopted by the kids as the beloved mascot of the sandlot baseball team. He happily spends the rest of his days hanging out with the boys and peacefully lives to a legendary 199 in dog years.