Backyard Baseball

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.

The original game consisted of 30 neighborhood kids from which the player must build a team. 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,Template:Efn the AL and NL championship seriesTemplate:Efn and finally the "Backyard Baseball World Series".Template:Efn Series games will vary per game.

This game has various playable modes, and they include: Single Game, Batting Practice, Spectator, and Season Game.

A remastered version of the first Backyard Baseball title was released for Windows (via Steam) on October 10, 2024, followed by ports for iOS and Android on March 27, 2025, and for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 on June 12, 2025. A remastered version of Backyard Baseball 2001 is set to release for Windows and mobile devices on July 8, 2025.

Legacy

Pablo Sanchez, one of the fictional playable characters in the game, has been regarded as one of the strongest athletes in video game history.

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.

Players

In Backyard Baseball 2001, in addition to the 30 fictional kids, each team was represented by at least one MLB pro player,Template:Efn 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.

Installments

Title	Year	Platforms	Cover athlete
Backyard Baseball	October 10, 1997	Macintosh, Windows	Original characters
Backyard Baseball 2001	June 6, 2000		Cal Ripken Jr.
Backyard Baseball	2002	Game Boy Advance	Mike Piazza
Backyard Baseball 2003	2002	Macintosh, Windows
Backyard Baseball	2003	GameCube	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
Backyard Baseball '97	October 10, 2024	Windows, iOS, Android, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5
Backyard Baseball '01	July 8, 2025	Windows, iOS, Android

External links

• Official Backyard Baseball website