| Backyard Baseball | |
| Developer: | Humongous Entertainment (original) Mega Cat Studios (remaster) |
| Publisher: | Humongous Entertainment (original) Playground Productions (remaster) |
| Series: | Backyard Baseball Backyard Sports |
| Engine: | SCUMM |
| Platforms: | Windows, Classic Mac OS |
| Released: | Original (Windows, Classic Mac OS)[1] 97 remaster (Windows) |
| Genre: | Sports video game |
| Modes: | Single-player |
Backyard Baseball is a baseball video game developed and published by Humongous Entertainment. It is the first video game released for the Backyard Sports franchise (originally known as the Junior Sports series)[2] and the long-running Backyard Baseball series. The game was released on a hybrid Windows and Macintosh CD-ROM on October 10, 1997.
The game was remastered in 2024 as Backyard Baseball '97. The remaster was released for Windows via Steam on October 10, 2024, exactly 27 years after the original's release.[3]
Backyard Baseball is a baseball sports video game designed and aimed for children. There are three main modes: Pick-Up Play, League Play and Batting Practice. A spectator mode exists which pits two randomly chosen computer-controlled teams together. The player can also view their trophies won, their records and view baseball cards of the characters. Before playing a pick-up game or starting a season, the user can change the set difficulty, toggle tee-ball (in Pick-Up Play only), switch from 6- or 9-inning games, and toggle errors. In both modes, a player can create their own team by customizing their team's name and color and drafting 9 players from a pool of thirty characters. During the game, there are many powerups that can be used either by a pitcher, which can be achieved by recording a strikeout, and by the batter, which can be achieved by getting a hit on a power-up pitch when playing offense.
In the pick-up play mode, the player can choose a field from seven different fields of varying size and field material: for example, the field Tin Can Alley makes it unique, due to its hard surfacing and difficulty to score a usual home run. After creating their own team, the player takes turns drafting their players against a computer. In league play, the player is restricted to Parks Department Field No. 2.
In league play, the player signs a coach in the Backyard Baseball League. The player guides their chosen team through a 14-game season against 7 other league teams. At the end of the season, once the team wins enough games to place first or second in their league, their team plays against the other qualified team to win the league pennant in the best-of-3 All-City BBL Playoffs. Once the team wins the pennant, the team is invited to play in the postseason tournament, starting with the best-of-3 Super Entire Nation Tournament, and then the Ultra Grand Championship of the Universe (analogous to the real-life World Series).[1]
The game features thirty fictional children evenly split between 15 boys and 15 girls, rated from 1 to 4 in batting, running, pitching and fielding. One notable character is Pablo Sanchez, a small, Spanish-speaking boy whose amazing skill in batting and running makes him an iconic character in the future overarching series.[4] The game has been notable for its wide range of diversity within its cast.[5] [6] [7]
Backyard Baseball was conceived by Nick Mirkovich, who took inspiration from various baseball-themed movies focusing on children; the project was later put into action during the 1995 American League Division Series. Backyard Baseball was first revealed at the 1997 E3 in June.[8]
The success of Backyard Baseball led to the release of more Backyard Sports titles,[4] including updated versions of Backyard Baseball, starting with Backyard Baseball 2001, which would be the first Backyard Baseball game to include Major League teams and professional sports players,[9] a tradition started in Backyard Football.[10]
A remaster of Backyard Baseball entitled Backyard Baseball '97 was released on October 10, 2024, via Steam, as part of a reboot of the Backyard Sports franchise.[3] The remaster was developed by Mega Cat Studios and published by Playground Productions.[11] A hacked CD-ROM copy of the game was used as basis for the remaster, as the source code of the original game has been lost; as a result, the remaster currently only supports Windows. The remaster supports several Steam features not found in the original release (as Steam didn't exist in 1997), including leaderboards, achievements, and cloud saves. On October 8, two days before the remaster's release, Playground Productions announced that the remaster was Steam Deck-verified and would also support the use of gamepads, which were not supported in the original release.[12] A post-launch update on November 7 added the use of Crowd Control, a feature available on streaming services that allows viewers to add various gameplay effects during live video game streams.[13]
Backyard Baseball was released to moderate reviews: the game was praised for its diversity and Computer Gaming World cited the easy to learn difficulty. However, reviewers criticized the slow gameplay with macHOME describing the pacing "as fluid as a drunk trying to walk a straight line".
Reviews of the 2024 remaster noted that it was functionally identical to the original release[14] —now a cult classic.[15] However, Mark Delaney of GameSpot viewed this as a missed opportunity to implement some quality-of-life features.[16]
Backyard Baseball at MobyGames