

Rather, it’s that he’s, by far, the best personality in the game. You’re only looking for singles to the left side of the field with him but if you can get him on base, watch out.īut it’s not his ability that gets him into the top-ten. He’s a strong fielder with range and he’s one the fastest players in the game, making him a menace as a runner. Though he’s not a complete player, with strategic usage he can be an effective player. As a game from the late-90s, it was well ahead of its time in that regard and probably helped out a lot of children who played it.ĭante is a decent option on the field. Unironically, it’s incredibly impressive how Backyard Baseball subtly explored diversity and the kinds of problems children could have in their lives. In the meantime, dad needs to let them be kids and enjoy sports. Hopefully they will grow up and discover their own individuality. The way they are treated as a single unit is detrimental, and it’s quite sad. Their dad is turning them into tennis robots and tries to prevent them from playing baseball so they don’t ruin their serves. They both passive-aggressively claim to be the prettier of the two behind each others’ backs. Their father is a monster who clearly is traumatizing the kids by forcing them into competition against each other.

The girls’ personalities come off as a bit phony and manufactured, with no distinguishable individuality, and I initially judged them harshly for it. It’s like if the Sedin’s had fourth-line ability and $3M cap hits. However, they’re not good enough individually to justify keeping both on the roster. They’re okay at baseball - certainly, there are worse pitching options - and play even better when they’re on the same team together. Same look, same clothes, same abilities, and same interests. The two twin girls are identical in just about every way. In the event of ties, I arbitrarily decided which kid I liked better in abstract. Those areas ranked from 1-to-10 and then averaged together to assign an overall rating. Theme Music: Does the music fit the kid’s personality? Is it noteworthy and memorable? Is it enjoyable to listen to? Are they interesting? Do they bring anything else to the table? Would I loathe being their camp counselors? How likely are they to grow up and become terrible adults who yell at retail workers? You can’t build a BBL Ultra Grand World Championship of the Universe winner without a good group on and off the field. Personality: This is not purely a ranking of how good the kids are at playing baseball. So while Ricky Johnson was a beast inside the paint in Backyard Basketball, that is of no use here. For this exercise we are only considering their abilities in Backyard Baseball. This is not merely a raw tally of his/her stats, but also effectiveness in filling a role on the team and optimizing the overall roster. Here are the criteria considered in performing this exercise.Ībility: How capable and useful the player is. I am now a crazy pageant parent who exploits offspring in the name of covering up my own insecurities, and I’m going to rank the 30 (original) kids in Backyard Baseball.

If I’ve learned anything about America, it’s that there’s nothing we do better than pit children against each other in unhealthy competitive environments and ruin their self-esteem by mercilessly evaluating them and assigning them numbers which analyze their worth.
#Backyard baseball 2003 menu professional
With professional sports wrought with hyper-competitiveness, commercialism, and scandal, Backyard Baseball was a reminder of the origins of sports and how wholesome they can be.Īnd screw that. Most notably, it offered a ragtag group of diverse, quirky characters whose idiosyncrasies elevated them well above the mundane, cookie-cutter appearance that was typical for sports video games at the time, which usually offered an amalgamation of oafish, blocky pixels which could have just as easily been Wayne Gretzky or Darren Langdon. It combined the innocence of childhood friendships with competitive sports. It was a surprisingly complex game given the ostensibly simple point-and-click controls. There are many reasons that Backyard Baseball became a video game that came to define a generation.
