| Backyard Baseball | |
| Genre: | Sports |
| Developer: | Humongous Entertainment |
| Publisher: | Humongous Entertainment Infogrames Atari The Evergreen Group |
| Platforms: | Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, Wii, Windows, iOS, Xbox 360, Game Boy Advance, GameCube, Macintosh |
| First Release Version: | Backyard Baseball |
| First Release Date: | October 10, 1997 |
| Latest Release Version: | Backyard Sports: Baseball |
| Latest Release Date: | 2015 |
Backyard Baseball is a series of baseball video games for children which was originally developed by Humongous Entertainment. It was first released in October 1997 for Macintosh and Microsoft Windows. Later games were featured on Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Wii, and iOS. It is part of the Backyard Sports series, of which this series serves as its first sub-series. There have been eleven different versions of the game since 1997. Some of the game titles that were created include Backyard Baseball, Backyard Baseball 2001-2010, and Backyard Sports: Sandlot Sluggers.
The original game consisted of 30 neighborhood kids from which the player must build a team.[1] Over the years, the idea of "Pro players as kids" became popular, and the original statistics and looks of the players changed. As the game progresses, there are some professionals that become available or "unlockable" including Randy Johnson, Derek Jeter, and Mike Piazza.
In Backyard Baseball, players take a managerial role by creating a team of different players to compete against opponents. In the different installments, one could choose to play a one-off exhibition game or a seasonal league, followed by the "Backyard Baseball League" playoffs, which contains the American League and National League division series, the AL and NL championship series and finally the "Backyard Baseball World Series". Series games will vary per game.
This game has various playable modes and they include: Single Game, Batting Practice, Spectator, and Season Game.
Pablo Sanchez, one of the fictional playable characters in the game, has been regarded as one of the strongest athletes in video game history.[2] [3] [4]
The game has also been noted for its diversity (gender, race, disability, etc.) of characters, both in ratio of white to non-white and male to female, as well as skill level and the distribution of the best characters.[5]
In Backyard Baseball 2001, in addition to the 30 fictional kids, each team was represented by at least one MLB pro player, many of which were all-stars during the 1999 Major League Baseball All Star Game. Eventual Hall of Fame players featured include Barry Larkin, Vladimir Guerrero, Jeff Bagwell, Larry Walker, Chipper Jones, Derek Jeter, Mike Piazza, Tony Gwynn, Ken Griffey Jr., Cal Ripken Jr., Ivan Rodriguez, and Randy Johnson, who are all playable characters to choose from.
Other professional players from the later games included Chipper Jones, Frank Thomas, Alex Rodriguez, Alfonso Soriano, Ichiro Suzuki, Sammy Sosa, Jim Thome, Albert Pujols, Nomar Garciaparra, Ken Griffey Jr., and Barry Bonds.
Several of these players would be featured in multiple releases including Nomar Garciaparra, Derek Jeter, and Alex Rodriguez.
| Title | Year | Platforms | Cover athlete |
|---|---|---|---|
| Backyard Baseball | October 10, 1997[6] | Original characters | |
| Backyard Baseball 2001 | June 6, 2000[7] | Macintosh, Windows | Cal Ripken Jr. |
| Backyard Baseball | 2002 | Mike Piazza | |
| Backyard Baseball 2003 | 2002 | Macintosh, Windows | |
| Backyard Baseball | 2003 | Alex Rodriguez | |
| Backyard Baseball | 2004 | PlayStation 2 | |
| Backyard Baseball 2005 | 2004 | Windows | |
| Backyard Baseball 2006 | 2005 | Game Boy Advance | |
| Backyard Sports: Baseball 2007 | 2006 | Game Boy Advance, GameCube, PlayStation 2, Windows | Albert Pujols |
| Backyard Baseball 09 | 2008 | Nintendo DS, Wii, PlayStation 2, Windows | David Ortiz |
| Backyard Baseball 10 | 2009 | Nintendo DS, Wii, PlayStation 2 | |
| Backyard Sports: Sandlot Sluggers | 2010 | Wii, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, Windows | Original characters |
| Backyard Sports: Baseball 2015 | 2015 | iOS, Android; published by Fingerprint Network |