Backyard Baseball ’97

There’s a kind of magic to watching Pablo Sanchez, all 3’5” of him, crank a dinger into the upper atmosphere while a crowd of cartoon children hoots from the sidelines. Backyard Baseball ’97, the foundational kid-core sports game, is back with its sugary blend of screwball nostalgia and sandlot chaos. And while it hasn’t aged perfectly, it’s still got game.

This is no remaster, mind you, it’s a resurrection. Dug up from CD-ROM purgatory by Mega Cat Studios after the original source code vanished into the aether, this re-release is as authentic as it gets. Same club house menus. Same juice-box stamina bars. Same fireball pitch that scorches the Earth like a war crime. It even boots in a little window with black bars, like watching a VHS tape your cousin taped over with Dragon Ball Z reruns.

You build your team from a cast of 30 expressive kid characters, each with stats, quirks, and enough voice lines to make your parents mute the speakers in ‘97. It’s a lovable rogues’ gallery, from the untouchable Pablo to wheelchair speedster Kenny to secret sluggers like Keisha Phillips. The personalities are loud, the stakes are low, and the whole thing feels like Saturday morning in a neighborhood without adult supervision.

Controls are simple: click to swing, pitch, run, or throw. But underneath the playground polish is a subtle layer of strategy. You choose swing types. You manage pitcher stamina. You unleash limited-use super pitches like the “Zigzag” or the “Crazyball,” which break the rules of physics in delightful ways. It’s not MLB The Show, but that’s the point. This is baseball without the crust, all joy, no peanuts.

Of course, the cracks are still there. It’s slow. There’s no real music. The menus clunk like they’re powered by dial-up. But for $9.99? It’s hard to complain. Whether you’re introducing your kid to digital baseball or revisiting your elementary school MVP era, Backyard Baseball ’97 still slaps.

Backyard Baseball ’97 doesn’t just hold up, it jogs out onto the field in mismatched socks, drops a bunt, and smiles like it’s never heard of EA Sports. It’s slow, silly, and undeniably sweet, the kind of game that reminds you why pick-up games were never really about the score.