Tag Archives: Backyard Baseball

Fictional Fields: Parks Department Field No. 2

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An often-underappreciated part of fiction is setting and set design. We focus on the characters and special effects flying around, all of that is meaningless without a sense of place. What would Captain Kirk be without the bridge of the USS Enterprise? Would The Shawshank Redemption have worked as well if we could not see the prison walls that Andy Dufresne chips his way through? What would Mario be able to do if there weren’t blocks, castles, hills, and tubes around for him to jump on and explore? The places where our fiction takes place help dictate how that fiction occurs.

The same can be said for baseball. Alone among the major sports, massive differences exist between ball fields. They can be anything from an open field with no boundaries to a gigantic stadium with walls of various heights. How that ball field is laid out affects how the game is played: what will and won’t be a home run, how deep the outfielders will play, and how likely it is that a long hit becomes a double, triple, or out.

Now, I combine the two to look at FICTIONAL FIELDS- baseball fields from the land of fiction. We begin with Parks Department Field No. 2 from the classic Backyard Baseball.

About The Field: Debuting in the classic Backyard Baseball of 1997, Parks Department Field No. 2 (PDFN2) was in some ways the most ubiquitous and least-wacky stadium in the series. Initially only available if you played in season mode, it became available for single games in later installments. Sadly, after the 2003 installment, PDFN2 disappeared from the series.

As mentioned above, it was the least-wacky stadium of the series. While other fields in the games are generally in actual backyards, back alleys, or playgrounds, this one has a more official feeling. The fact that it was what was used in season mode suggests that it was (and perhaps still is) the home facility of the local sports organization.

Great Players: The field was used by almost every team in season mode, from the Melonheads to the Taters and everyone in-between. There were also pint-sized versions of MLB teams. The only teams that couldn’t be encountered there were those that could only be found in post-season tournament play. As a result, PDFN2 saw many of the greats: Pablo Sanchez, Pete Wheeler, Stephanie Morgan, Achmed Khan, the works! Add in the kid versions of MLB stars from the sequels, and it’s possible that PDFN2 has seen the greatest assemblage of baseball talent in video game history.

Dimensions:

So, before we figure out the field’s dimensions, there is a need first to get an idea of what type of field this is. There is reason to believe it is a Little League-size field. Why? When you see the length of home runs in Backyard batting practices, you see that the balls that die at the left-center wall are only going 196 feet (note that in BB they count the rolls and bounces for distance). Dead grounders ahead of the pitcher’s mound are in the 30s as far as distance, and a ball clearly past the pitcher’s mound is 62 feet. Look below at a screenshot of Eauxps I. Fourgott’s video:

This would suggest that this is a little league field. So about 46 feet from the mound to home and 60 feet between the bases. This is not surprising, of course, given that the Backyard Baseballers are children, but it’s still important to know as we figure out the lengths.

So, looking over various videos of home run derbies, I’ve come to the conclusion that the following distances are definitely true:

Left Field: 175 ft

Left-Center: 196 ft

Right-Center: 196 ft

Right Field: 175 ft

So, we still need to figure out how long it is down the lines and to straightaway center. To do that, we’ll need to do the highly-unscientific-but-the-best-we’ve-got method of pixel measurement. In this case, we measure something on the computer in pixels and then use that to get an idea of the scale. Since it isn’t a “straight-on” view but rather at an angle and further distorted by it cartooniness, we’ll have to use the balls closest to the area we’re aiming at to set a scale.

So, for example, it appears that the hit towards center that went 180 feet was 1274.5 pixels. This suggests that 7.080555555 (repeating) pixels is equal to one foot. Since straightaway center is about 1306 pixels, that suggests that it’s about 184.4 feet to center. This means, of course, that the right-center and left-center alleys are actually deeper than straightaway center.

Now, time to figure out the lines. The ball hit closest to the line is the 136 hit to left. So to get something close to that scale, we find 1299.1 pixels equals 136 feet. That suggests that down the lines we should assume one foot is represented by just over 9.5522 pixels. It looks like the lines are 1310.5 pixels, so that equals out to about 137.19 feet down the lines. So, the final dimensions of PDFN2 are:

Left Field line: 137 ft

Left Field: 175 ft

Left-Center: 196 ft

Dead Center: 184 ft

Right-Center: 196 ft

Right Field: 175 ft

Right Field line: 137 ft

Now, this was highly unscientific, and no doubt the “real” lengths are rounded up or down. Still, it gives a “ballpark” figure. And, yes, that wordplay is intended.

Just for fun, given that Little League fields are 2/3rds the size of adult fields, we can figure out what the MLB equivalent of PDFN2 is with a little math. That comes out to…

Left Field line: 205.5 ft

Left Field: 262.5 ft

Left-Center: 294 ft

Dead Center: 276 ft

Right-Center: 294 ft

Right Field: 262.5

Right Field line: 205.5 ft

You’ll notice that this is still hilariously small (and also that the shape would become more exaggerated). Doing some work with the OOTP Parkgen website suggests it’d be the ultimate hitter’s park:

Yes, if you are reading that right, it should literally be impossible to hit a double in play on that field. So this leads to the question: why was it so small? Even going by the Little League standards (where the deepest parts are 196), the deepest parts of PDFN2 are far closer to the plate than the walls at Lamade Stadium in Williamsport. Given that Pablo Sanchez can smack it over 700 feet, it becomes even more absurd.

Alas, we have no way of knowing. Still, we now know the dimensions for PDFN2, so use this knowledge only for good.

Capacity and Amenities: By default, 16 people are seen in the stands when seen from overhead in Backyard Baseball. Based on the empty spots, it looks like another 16 probably could fit on those stands for a total capacity of 32. It’s possible that additional stands existed outside of camera view, but those were never seen, at least in the classic games. And, of course, there probably is room for blankets and other standing-room options.

As far as amenities, PDFN2 is and was top-of-the-line. Perhaps even over-the-top. It possesses a large scoreboard in dead center for replays and statistics, as well as a blimp that flew over to celebrate home runs. It also had an awesome sound system to blast out the theme songs of all the players. Some sort of broadcast facilities are/were also present since Sunny Day and Vinny the Gooch were able to cover all games.

For fans, less is known. However, given the Gooch’s chili dog, we must assume that some concession stands are/were present.

Other Notes: PDFN2 is part of a series of fields run by the Parks Department. Parks Department Field No. 3 is used for (American) football, while Parks Department Field No. 7 and Parks Department Field No. 8 are used for soccer (although PDFN8 lacks grass and is instead a sandy field).

Final Thoughts: The Parks Department Field No. 2 is a classic of Backyard Baseball, but lacks much of the charm that other fields in the series have. This is, admittedly, by design. While other playing fields are odd and quirky, PDFN2 is fair, without giving an advantage to left-handed or right-handed hitters. It also had a more professional look, like an actual youth stadium on steroids. This made it the perfect stadium for the season mode that Backyard Baseball had. It may not have been the place you’d want to play with your friends, but it was definitely the place you’d want to play against your opponents.

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Happy Birthday, Pablo Sanchez

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Today, August 18, is an important day, as it is the birthday of the greatest baseball player of all time: Pablo Sanchez. Yes, Pablo Sanchez. The Secret Weapon. You remember him, from back in the day, that Mexican-American wonder-kid who couldn’t speak a lick of English (or so he claimed), but could speak the language of baseball like nobody else. He could throw a no-hitter (although pitching wasn’t his main strength), hit the ball 723 feet, and was also a great multi-sport athlete who also played soccer, hockey, football and basketball.

To this day, it is said, if you find a sandlot, close your eyes, and think of him, you can still hear his song drift through the wind, reminding us all of the legend.

Feliz cumpleaños, Pablo. We know you continue to fight the good fight.

 

(Oh, and I guess I should take the time to wish a happy birthday to my sister as well.)

(Blogathon ’16) CONTINUUM CLASSIC: The “Backyard Baseball” Kids: Where Are They Now?

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This piece from the blog’s archives is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page.

Originally published August 15, 2014.

As you may know, I am a big fan of the old Backyard Baseball video games. In fact, I have a low-burn campaign to get the original games on Steam. So, with the Little League World Series here, I got to thinking: Whatever happened to those kids? Where are they now? I mean, I presume they lived in California, since that’s where Humongous Entertainment was, and I’m going to guess they’d be in their 20s nowadays (the oldest of them would have been, like, 13 in 1997 and the release of the first game, and the youngest would have probably been 6 or 7. Most of them seemed to be be around 10, 11 or 12), but… what would they be doing now? How did their lives turn out?

I did some research, and here’s what I found. It was a high-achieving group, with three individuals playing professional baseball, several others playing sports in college or professionally, and others going on to stardom or at least happy lives. Sadly, as with any large group of people, there were some who never achieved their dreams, others who lost their way, and even one who who is no longer with us. And then, there is one final person who is a story all of his own…

  • Kenny Kawaguchi, the wheelchair-bound player who appeared in early games of the series but later disappeared, currently runs a music-and-sports podcast in Los Angeles, where he works as a consultant to various tech companies.
  • Tony Delvecchio had a brief career in the Mets organization and Indy-ball. A proud Italian-American, he represented Italy in some minor international tournaments. He now is a bartender in Las Vegas and is married with two kids.
  • Although Tony would refuse to ever admit it, his sister, Angela Delvecchio, fared far better at baseball, playing on the boys team at a small NAIA school before causing a brief media stir when she was signed by a team in the Golden Baseball League in the 2000s. She continues to pitch in the Girls Professional Baseball League in Japan and is a member of the United States Womens National Baseball Team.
  • Pete Wheeler joined the Army and won a Silver Star and Purple Heart for his actions overseas, and is currently being considered for a Congressional Medal of Honor for his role in rescuing his commander from enemy fire. He also has taken up ping-pong.
  • Brothers Achmed and Amir Khan, as well as Amir’s wife Maria (née Luna), now tour the nation as America’s number one Pakistani/Mexican Fusion Metal-Rock Trio, the Wrath of Khans.
  • Ashley and Sidney Webber‘s tennis careers floundered shortly after they turned pro, with neither of them getting past the second round of any major tournament and only reaching the third round of a major tournament as a pair. The two, who often appear on lists of “greatest sports phenom busts”, recently wrote a controversial book in which they blamed their domineering father for their issues, saying that he took away a normal childhood from them. Both now retired, Ashley is an assistant coach at Notre Dame (ironically, her father’s alma mater) while Sidney has started a program meant to bring tennis to children of low-income families.
  • Dante Robinson is now a competitive eater, holding the record for most hamburgers eaten and is second in the world in several categories, including pickles, bananas, and peanut butter. When not competing, he sells insurance and is in a steady relationship with another competitive eater, Kimmy Eckman (female champion in candy bars).
  • Vicki Kawaguchi, Kenny’s little sister, has had a tough life. While rumors that she for a time turned to a seedier form of dancing after her ballet career never took off have neither been confirmed nor denied, it is known that she was, in Kenny’s words, “disowned” from the family at one point and had problems with substance abuse. Thankfully, things have seemingly turned around for Vicki, who wrote and drew a best-selling manga-inspired graphic novel on her experiences, entitled “The Pointe in Life”, which she mysteriously dedicates to a “P.S.”
  • Dmitri Petrovich, contrary to popular belief, does not work at the NSA. Nor does he work at DARPA. The report that he was arrested for being a Russian spy is also completely false. No, the truth is much more mundane: Dmitri Petrovich actually works at Virgin Galactic. Well… I guess that’s not that mundane. Oh well.
  • Stephanie Morgan‘s baseball career came to a tragic end when she suffered a catastrophic leg injury during a game at Tin Can Alley. Thankfully, the experiences that came from that injury led her to pursue a life in medicine. One of the oldest of the backyard gang, she now works as a orthopedic surgeon in Los Angeles.
  • Annie Frazier later turned full-time to soccer, playing in High School and College. She now runs a co-op food market in San Francisco after funding from an unknown source saved it from financial ruin.
  • Vinnie the Gooch is currently serving time for fraud and money-laundering, but swears he was framed because “The Gooch wouldn’t do that stuff”.
  • Ernie Steele was heavily recruited by Division I basketball teams and eventually signed a letter of intent at Syracuse. Jim Boeheim kicked him off the team after one practice after a joke that centered on a particularly bad pun about the zone defense. After some time playing in Europe and several dozen standup classes, “Funnybones” is now a member of the Harlem Globetrotters.
  • Sally Dobbs is an attorney, while her little brother Ronny is a firefighter, having grown up both in size but also in courage.
  • Mikey Thomas kept playing baseball and bloomed into quite the slugger as he defeated his childhood sicknesses. He was given a scholarship to Humungous University. However, he then found himself unable to keep up with D1 pitching, and his slow speed and so-so fielding caused him to be benched. Seeking an edge, Mike turned to steroids. It was then, according to him, that he received an anonymous letter that told him that cheating was the easy way out, and then went on to give him a few good tips. Thomas then broke out, hitting home runs in five consecutive games and winning back a starting position. Thomas reached as high as AA in the Red Sox organization before a knee injury took him out of affiliated ball (ironically, Stephanie Morgan, then in her residency, helped with the surgery). He now coaches baseball not far from where he and the others played in their childhood.
  • Jocinda Smith’s played for the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team and now plays in the WNBA, where she is a perennial All-Star.
  • Kiesha Phillips later turned to softball and was an All-American in college. She now works as a school counselor in her hometown.
  • Gretchen Hasselhoff is now a voice actress, best known for doing those disclaimers at the end of commercials that are spoken so fast you can barely understand them.
  • Ricky Johnson played for a mid-major Division I football team but has since fallen on hard times due to heavy medical bills and post-concussion problems. A recent mysterious donation has helped ease the financial problems, but sadly nobody is sure if Ricky will ever be the same again.
  • Marky Dubois was for a time missing, and presumed dead, somewhere in the Louisiana Bayou, where he went saying he would find the legendary “Skunk Ape” and bring it back to civilization. Nobody, apparently, told him that the Skunk Ape is said to live in Florida. Late last year, however, he traipsed out, a frog in one hand and some hairs he claimed to be from the “Skunk Ape” in another. He has yet to discuss his ordeal.
  • Billy Jean Blackwood’s modeling career never panned out, so she instead went into the hospitality industry. She currently is an assistant manager at a hotel in New Orleans.
  • Luanne Lui, the youngest of all the backyard kids, recently graduated from Humongous State University, where she played softball. She is pursuing a graduate degree but has not yet decided in what yet.
  • Reese Worthington played soccer in college and has begun a career in finance and was recently featured in a news story about his large stamp collection.
  • Every “Where Are They Now” article has a sob story. And in this case, it’s the fate of Jorge Garcia, the bespectacled kid with a weird swing. Garcia passed away at the age of 16 when he was killed in a hit-and-run not far from Parks Department Field #2, where his family had recently sponsored the building of a new concession stand. Despite a hefty reward offered by his family, no perpetrator was found until several years later, when an anonymous tip led police to a man who quickly confessed to the crime. Due to the tip being anonymous, the reward money was donated to the local Backyard Sports organization and also used to create a scholarship in Jorge’s name.
  • Although she was probably the last one anyone expected to do so, Lisa Crocket eventually blossomed into a beautiful and outgoing woman and became a actress who is best known for her role as Cynthia Coat in “Pajama” Sam Peterson’s gritty reboot of Pajama Man.
  • Sunny Day currently works behind the scenes at BNN, which you may be familiar with if you play Out of the Park Baseball.
  • And finally…

Pablo Sanchez. The Secret Weapon. The undisputed greatest of all the backyard kids, who was great no matter the sport but was greatest of all in baseball. Nobody ever truly knew much about him, as he only seemed to know Spanish and usually just let his skills do the talking. At least, that’s what everybody thought. In reality, Pablo spoke perfect English, he had learned Spanish- and become instantly fluent in it- in school. And, as he continued to rule anything and everything he tried his hand at, certain eyes were drawn to him. Rumors began to spread of a child who would break all existing sports paradigms, the sports equivalent of a nuclear weapon. Whatever team that would get him would instantly become the greatest on earth, whatever league that had him would become the most popular in the nation, and whatever he endorsed would instantly become the best-selling.

He would upset the balance of all sports and all the economies connected to them, bringing about chaos. Quite simply, the lords of sports decided, Pablo Sanchez could never be allowed to play sports above the youth level.

They came to him a few days before he started High School. All four commissioners of the Big 4, the heads of the IOC, FIFA, NASCAR, and ESPN’s X-Games divisions. Several major CEOs and a few big-name agents. Some say that even a few senators showed up.  Never before or since had such a conglomeration come together.

They made Pablo and his family a simple offer: In exchange for not disrupting the natural order of competition and business in the sports world, they would give him a half-billion dollars. A year. Until the age of 50, at which point it would merely become a million dollars a year.

You’d like to think that Pablo would have been incorruptible. But, alas, even he had a price. And so, the greatest athlete of all time never stepped on the field.

Instead, he became something so much greater. You see, while others would have just taken that money, gotten a nice mansion, and lived a life of leisure, Pablo would have no such things. After college (where he was Summa Cum Laude, of course), he began to travel. And he began to help people. You see, over the years, Pablo looked out for his friends. It was he who saved Marky Dubois from the deepest part of the Bayou, it was he who wrote that letter to Mikey Thomas, it was he who helped fund Annie Frazier’s business, it was he who paid Ricky Johnson’s bills, and it was he who gave the tip that led the police to the man who had killed Jorge Garcia. And, yes, it was he who was the one who helped Vicki Kawaguchi turn her life around, something for which she dedicated her book to him for.

Yes, the Secret Weapon still has been amazing, and still can do no wrong. And to this day, if you see a man driving a purple car going “putt-putt-putt” down the road, know that he probably is on his way to do something amazing again, perhaps finding out what really happened with Vinnie the Gooch or looking for what happened to Earl Grey, the soccer announcer who hasn’t been seen in nearly a decade. And you can know that he has made a difference, even if it wasn’t on a sports field…

…well… maybe.

You see, once, during his travels, he came to a town in New Jersey. While there, he went to a youth baseball practice. He saw something in one of the players, something like he once was. He went up to that player. And, in the next few hours, he taught nearly everything he knew to that kid.

You may know that “kid” as Mike Trout.

The Secret Weapon lives on.

–

This piece from the blog’s archives has been part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page.

Breaking OOTP, Episode 4: The Seattle MARIOners vs. Pablo Sanchez and the Backyard Kids

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BreakingOOTPlogo

In BREAKING OOTP, I push Out Of The Park Baseball to it’s limits in various scenarios. Some will answer questions, some will settle scores, and some will push Out Of The Park Baseball to it’s very limits, to see if I can literally cause the game engine to beg for mercy.

Last time, we made the Seattle Mariners be full of Mario and Donkey Kong characters. This week, though, we have a exhibition series between the MARIOners (minus any Mariners) and… the Backyard Baseball kids (shown here to be on the Dodgers, because reasons)! Yes, Mario vs. Pablo Sanchez. At stake: The title of GREATEST VIDEO GAME BASEBALL TEAM OF ALL TIME.

Or something like that. Go below the jump, and be sure to check the previous post to see how I created the Mario characters- I used an almost-identical process for the Backyard Kids:

Continue reading →

NEXT TIME ON BREAKING OOTP: MARIO vs. PABLO SANCHEZ

Aside

Next time on BREAKING OOTP, the Seattle MARIOners from last time face off with the Backyard Baseball Kids in a 7-game series to determine who is the greatest video game baseball team ever.

Yes, you’ll hear about Princess Peach pitching to Pablo Sanchez. You will learn the result of Angela Delvecchio vs. Bowser. Pete Wheeler might challenge Petey Piranha’s arm!

Look out for it this coming weekend or so.

Best of 2014- The “Backyard Baseball” Kids: Where Are They Now?

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Originally published August 15, 2014.

 

As you may know, I am a big fan of the old Backyard Baseball video games. In fact, I have a low-burn campaign to get the original games on Steam. So, with the Little League World Series here, I got to thinking: Whatever happened to those kids? Where are they now? I mean, I presume they lived in California, since that’s where Humongous Entertainment was, and I’m going to guess they’d be in their 20s nowadays (the oldest of them would have been, like, 13 in 1997 and the release of the first game, and the youngest would have probably been 6 or 7. Most of them seemed to be be around 10, 11 or 12), but… what would they be doing now? How did their lives turn out?

I did some research, and here’s what I found. It was a high-achieving group, with three individuals playing professional baseball, several others playing sports in college or professionally, and others going on to stardom or at least happy lives. Sadly, as with any large group of people, there were some who never achieved their dreams, others who lost their way, and even one who who is no longer with us. And then, there is one final person who is a story all of his own…

  • Kenny Kawaguchi, the wheelchair-bound player who appeared in early games of the series but later disappeared, currently runs a music-and-sports podcast in Los Angeles, where he works as a consultant to various tech companies.
  • Tony Delvecchio had a brief career in the Mets organization and Indy-ball. A proud Italian-American, he represented Italy in some minor international tournaments. He now is a bartender in Las Vegas and is married with two kids.
  • Although Tony would refuse to ever admit it, his sister, Angela Delvecchio, fared far better at baseball, playing on the boys team at a small NAIA school before causing a brief media stir when she was signed by a team in the Golden Baseball League in the 2000s. She continues to pitch in the Girls Professional Baseball League in Japan and is a member of the United States Womens National Baseball Team.
  • Pete Wheeler joined the Army and won a Silver Star and Purple Heart for his actions overseas, and is currently being considered for a Congressional Medal of Honor for his role in rescuing his commander from enemy fire. He also has taken up ping-pong.
  • Brothers Achmed and Amir Khan, as well as Amir’s wife Maria (née Luna), now tour the nation as America’s number one Pakistani/Mexican Fusion Metal-Rock Trio, the Wrath of Khans.
  • Ashley and Sidney Webber‘s tennis careers floundered shortly after they turned pro, with neither of them getting past the second round of any major tournament and only reaching the third round of a major tournament as a pair. The two, who often appear on lists of “greatest sports phenom busts”, recently wrote a controversial book in which they blamed their domineering father for their issues, saying that he took away a normal childhood from them. Both now retired, Ashley is an assistant coach at Notre Dame (ironically, her father’s alma mater) while Sidney has started a program meant to bring tennis to children of low-income families.
  • Dante Robinson is now a competitive eater, holding the record for most hamburgers eaten and is second in the world in several categories, including pickles, bananas, and peanut butter. When not competing, he sells insurance and is in a steady relationship with another competitive eater, Kimmy Eckman (female champion in candy bars).
  • Vicki Kawaguchi, Kenny’s little sister, has had a tough life. While rumors that she for a time turned to a seedier form of dancing after her ballet career never took off have neither been confirmed nor denied, it is known that she was, in Kenny’s words, “disowned” from the family at one point and had problems with substance abuse. Thankfully, things have seemingly turned around for Vicki, who wrote and drew a best-selling manga-inspired graphic novel on her experiences, entitled “The Pointe in Life”, which she mysteriously dedicates to a “P.S.”
  • Dmitri Petrovich, contrary to popular belief, does not work at the NSA. Nor does he work at DARPA. The report that he was arrested for being a Russian spy is also completely false. No, the truth is much more mundane: Dmitri Petrovich actually works at Virgin Galactic. Well… I guess that’s not that mundane. Oh well.
  • Stephanie Morgan‘s baseball career came to a tragic end when she suffered a catastrophic leg injury during a game at Tin Can Alley. Thankfully, the experiences that came from that injury led her to pursue a life in medicine. One of the oldest of the backyard gang, she now works as a orthopedic surgeon in Los Angeles.
  • Annie Frazier later turned full-time to soccer, playing in High School and College. She now runs a co-op food market in San Francisco after funding from an unknown source saved it from financial ruin.
  • Vinnie the Gooch is currently serving time for fraud and money-laundering, but swears he was framed because “The Gooch wouldn’t do that stuff”.
  • Ernie Steele was heavily recruited by Division I basketball teams and eventually signed a letter of intent at Syracuse. Jim Boeheim kicked him off the team after one practice after a joke that centered on a particularly bad pun about the zone defense. After some time playing in Europe and several dozen standup classes, “Funnybones” is now a member of the Harlem Globetrotters.
  • Sally Dobbs is an attorney, while her little brother Ronny is a firefighter, having grown up both in size but also in courage.
  • Mikey Thomas kept playing baseball and bloomed into quite the slugger as he defeated his childhood sicknesses. He was given a scholarship to Humungous University. However, he then found himself unable to keep up with D1 pitching, and his slow speed and so-so fielding caused him to be benched. Seeking an edge, Mike turned to steroids. It was then, according to him, that he received an anonymous letter that told him that cheating was the easy way out, and then went on to give him a few good tips. Thomas then broke out, hitting home runs in five consecutive games and winning back a starting position. Thomas reached as high as AA in the Red Sox organization before a knee injury took him out of affiliated ball (ironically, Stephanie Morgan, then in her residency, helped with the surgery). He now coaches baseball not far from where he and the others played in their childhood.
  • Jocinda Smith’s played for the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team and now plays in the WNBA, where she is a perennial All-Star.
  • Kiesha Phillips later turned to softball and was an All-American in college. She now works as a school counselor in her hometown.
  • Gretchen Hasselhoff is now a voice actress, best known for doing those disclaimers at the end of commercials that are spoken so fast you can barely understand them.
  • Ricky Johnson played for a mid-major Division I football team but has since fallen on hard times due to heavy medical bills and post-concussion problems. A recent mysterious donation has helped ease the financial problems, but sadly nobody is sure if Ricky will ever be the same again.
  • Marky Dubois was for a time missing, and presumed dead, somewhere in the Louisiana Bayou, where he went saying he would find the legendary “Skunk Ape” and bring it back to civilization. Nobody, apparently, told him that the Skunk Ape is said to live in Florida. Late last year, however, he traipsed out, a frog in one hand and some hairs he claimed to be from the “Skunk Ape” in another. He has yet to discuss his ordeal.
  • Billy Jean Blackwood’s modeling career never panned out, so she instead went into the hospitality industry. She currently is an assistant manager at a hotel in New Orleans.
  • Luanne Lui, the youngest of all the backyard kids, recently graduated from Humongous State University, where she played softball. She is pursuing a graduate degree but has not yet decided in what yet.
  • Reese Worthington played soccer in college and has begun a career in finance and was recently featured in a news story about his large stamp collection.
  • Every “Where Are They Now” article has a sob story. And in this case, it’s the fate of Jorge Garcia, the bespectacled kid with a weird swing. Garcia passed away at the age of 16 when he was killed in a hit-and-run not far from Parks Department Field #2, where his family had recently sponsored the building of a new concession stand. Despite a hefty reward offered by his family, no perpetrator was found until several years later, when an anonymous tip led police to a man who quickly confessed to the crime. Due to the tip being anonymous, the reward money was donated to the local Backyard Sports organization and also used to create a scholarship in Jorge’s name.
  • Although she was probably the last one anyone expected to do so, Lisa Crocket eventually blossomed into a beautiful and outgoing woman and became a actress who is best known for her role as Cynthia Coat in “Pajama” Sam Peterson’s gritty reboot of Pajama Man.
  • Sunny Day currently works behind the scenes at BNN, which you may be familiar with if you play Out of the Park Baseball.
  • And finally…

Pablo Sanchez. The Secret Weapon. The undisputed greatest of all the backyard kids, who was great no matter the sport but was greatest of all in baseball. Nobody ever truly knew much about him, as he only seemed to know Spanish and usually just let his skills do the talking. At least, that’s what everybody thought. In reality, Pablo spoke perfect English, he had learned Spanish- and become instantly fluent in it- in school. And, as he continued to rule anything and everything he tried his hand at, certain eyes were drawn to him. Rumors began to spread of a child who would break all existing sports paradigms, the sports equivalent of a nuclear weapon. Whatever team that would get him would instantly become the greatest on earth, whatever league that had him would become the most popular in the nation, and whatever he endorsed would instantly become the best-selling.

He would upset the balance of all sports and all the economies connected to them, bringing about chaos. Quite simply, the lords of sports decided, Pablo Sanchez could never be allowed to play sports above the youth level.

They came to him a few days before he started High School. All four commissioners of the Big 4, the heads of the IOC, FIFA, NASCAR, and ESPN’s X-Games divisions. Several major CEOs and a few big-name agents. Some say that even a few senators showed up.  Never before or since had such a conglomeration come together.

They made Pablo and his family a simple offer: In exchange for not disrupting the natural order of competition and business in the sports world, they would give him a half-billion dollars. A year. Until the age of 50, at which point it would merely become a million dollars a year.

You’d like to think that Pablo would have been incorruptible. But, alas, even he had a price. And so, the greatest athlete of all time never stepped on the field.

Instead, he became something so much greater. You see, while others would have just taken that money, gotten a nice mansion, and lived a life of leisure, Pablo would have no such things. After college (where he was Summa Cum Laude, of course), he began to travel. And he began to help people. You see, over the years, Pablo looked out for his friends. It was he who saved Marky Dubois from the deepest part of the Bayou, it was he who wrote that letter to Mikey Thomas, it was he who helped fund Annie Frazier’s business, it was he who paid Ricky Johnson’s bills, and it was he who gave the tip that led the police to the man who had killed Jorge Garcia. And, yes, it was he who was the one who helped Vicki Kawaguchi turn her life around, something for which she dedicated her book to him for.

Yes, the Secret Weapon still has been amazing, and still can do no wrong. And to this day, if you see a man driving a purple car going “putt-putt-putt” down the road, know that he probably is on his way to do something amazing again, perhaps finding out what really happened with Vinnie the Gooch or looking for what happened to Earl Grey, the soccer announcer who hasn’t been seen in nearly a decade. And you can know that he has made a difference, even if it wasn’t on a sports field…

…well… maybe.

You see, once, during his travels, he came to a town in New Jersey. While there, he went to a youth baseball practice. He saw something in one of the players, something like he once was. He went up to that player. And, in the next few hours, he taught nearly everything he knew to that kid.

You may know that “kid” as Mike Trout.

The Secret Weapon lives on.

Happy Birthday, Pablo Sanchez

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Today, August 18, is an important day, as it is the birthday of the greatest baseball player of all time: Pablo Sanchez. Yes, Pablo Sanchez. The Secret Weapon. You remember him, from back in the day, that Mexican-American wonder-kid who couldn’t speak a lick of English (or so he claimed), but could speak the language of baseball like nobody else. He could throw a no-hitter (although pitching wasn’t his main strength), hit the ball 723 feet, and was also a great multi-sport athlete who also played soccer, hockey, football and basketball.

To this day, it is said, if you find a sandlot, close your eyes, and think of him, you can still hear his song drift through the wind, reminding us all of the legend.

Feliz cumpleaños, Pablo. We know you continue to fight the good fight.

 

(Oh, and I guess I should take the time to wish a happy birthday to my sister as well.)

The “Backyard Baseball” Kids: Where Are They Now?

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As you may know, I am a big fan of the old Backyard Baseball video games. In fact, I have a low-burn campaign to get the original games on Steam. So, with the Little League World Series here, I got to thinking: Whatever happened to those kids? Where are they now? I mean, I presume they lived in California, since that’s where Humongous Entertainment was, and I’m going to guess they’d be in their 20s nowadays (the oldest of them would have been, like, 13 in 1997 and the release of the first game, and the youngest would have probably been 6 or 7. Most of them seemed to be be around 10, 11 or 12), but… what would they be doing now? How did their lives turn out?

I did some research, and here’s what I found. It was a high-achieving group, with three individuals playing professional baseball, several others playing sports in college or professionally, and others going on to stardom or at least happy lives. Sadly, as with any large group of people, there were some who never achieved their dreams, others who lost their way, and even one who who is no longer with us. And then, there is one final person who is a story all of his own…

  • Kenny Kawaguchi, the wheelchair-bound player who appeared in early games of the series but later disappeared, currently runs a music-and-sports podcast in Los Angeles, where he works as a consultant to various tech companies.
  • Tony Delvecchio had a brief career in the Mets organization and Indy-ball. A proud Italian-American, he represented Italy in some minor international tournaments. He now is a bartender in Las Vegas and is married with two kids.
  • Although Tony would refuse to ever admit it, his sister, Angela Delvecchio, fared far better at baseball, playing on the boys team at a small NAIA school before causing a brief media stir when she was signed by a team in the Golden Baseball League in the 2000s. She continues to pitch in the Girls Professional Baseball League in Japan and is a member of the United States Womens National Baseball Team.
  • Pete Wheeler joined the Army and won a Silver Star and Purple Heart for his actions overseas, and is currently being considered for a Congressional Medal of Honor for his role in rescuing his commander from enemy fire. He also has taken up ping-pong.
  • Brothers Achmed and Amir Khan, as well as Amir’s wife Maria (née Luna), now tour the nation as America’s number one Pakistani/Mexican Fusion Metal-Rock Trio, the Wrath of Khans.
  • Ashley and Sidney Webber‘s tennis careers floundered shortly after they turned pro, with neither of them getting past the second round of any major tournament and only reaching the third round of a major tournament as a pair. The two, who often appear on lists of “greatest sports phenom busts”, recently wrote a controversial book in which they blamed their domineering father for their issues, saying that he took away a normal childhood from them. Both now retired, Ashley is an assistant coach at Notre Dame (ironically, her father’s alma mater) while Sidney has started a program meant to bring tennis to children of low-income families.
  • Dante Robinson is now a competitive eater, holding the record for most hamburgers eaten and is second in the world in several categories, including pickles, bananas, and peanut butter. When not competing, he sells insurance and is in a steady relationship with another competitive eater, Kimmy Eckman (female champion in candy bars).
  • Vicki Kawaguchi, Kenny’s little sister, has had a tough life. While rumors that she for a time turned to a seedier form of dancing after her ballet career never took off have neither been confirmed nor denied, it is known that she was, in Kenny’s words, “disowned” from the family at one point and had problems with substance abuse. Thankfully, things have seemingly turned around for Vicki, who wrote and drew a best-selling manga-inspired graphic novel on her experiences, entitled “The Pointe in Life”, which she mysteriously dedicates to a “P.S.”
  • Dmitri Petrovich, contrary to popular belief, does not work at the NSA. Nor does he work at DARPA. The report that he was arrested for being a Russian spy is also completely false. No, the truth is much more mundane: Dmitri Petrovich actually works at Virgin Galactic. Well… I guess that’s not that mundane. Oh well.
  • Stephanie Morgan‘s baseball career came to a tragic end when she suffered a catastrophic leg injury during a game at Tin Can Alley. Thankfully, the experiences that came from that injury led her to pursue a life in medicine. One of the oldest of the backyard gang, she now works as a orthopedic surgeon in Los Angeles.
  • Annie Frazier later turned full-time to soccer, playing in High School and College. She now runs a co-op food market in San Francisco after funding from an unknown source saved it from financial ruin.
  • Vinnie the Gooch is currently serving time for fraud and money-laundering, but swears he was framed because “The Gooch wouldn’t do that stuff”.
  • Ernie Steele was heavily recruited by Division I basketball teams and eventually signed a letter of intent at Syracuse. Jim Boeheim kicked him off the team after one practice after a joke that centered on a particularly bad pun about the zone defense. After some time playing in Europe and several dozen standup classes, “Funnybones” is now a member of the Harlem Globetrotters.
  • Sally Dobbs is an attorney, while her little brother Ronny is a firefighter, having grown up both in size but also in courage.
  • Mikey Thomas kept playing baseball and bloomed into quite the slugger as he defeated his childhood sicknesses. He was given a scholarship to Humungous University. However, he then found himself unable to keep up with D1 pitching, and his slow speed and so-so fielding caused him to be benched. Seeking an edge, Mike turned to steroids. It was then, according to him, that he received an anonymous letter that told him that cheating was the easy way out, and then went on to give him a few good tips. Thomas then broke out, hitting home runs in five consecutive games and winning back a starting position. Thomas reached as high as AA in the Red Sox organization before a knee injury took him out of affiliated ball (ironically, Stephanie Morgan, then in her residency, helped with the surgery). He now coaches baseball not far from where he and the others played in their childhood.
  • Jocinda Smith’s played for the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team and now plays in the WNBA, where she is a perennial All-Star.
  • Kiesha Phillips later turned to softball and was an All-American in college. She now works as a school counselor in her hometown.
  • Gretchen Hasselhoff is now a voice actress, best known for doing those disclaimers at the end of commercials that are spoken so fast you can barely understand them.
  • Ricky Johnson played for a mid-major Division I football team but has since fallen on hard times due to heavy medical bills and post-concussion problems. A recent mysterious donation has helped ease the financial problems, but sadly nobody is sure if Ricky will ever be the same again.
  • Marky Dubois was for a time missing, and presumed dead, somewhere in the Louisiana Bayou, where he went saying he would find the legendary “Skunk Ape” and bring it back to civilization. Nobody, apparently, told him that the Skunk Ape is said to live in Florida. Late last year, however, he traipsed out, a frog in one hand and some hairs he claimed to be from the “Skunk Ape” in another. He has yet to discuss his ordeal.
  • Billy Jean Blackwood’s modeling career never panned out, so she instead went into the hospitality industry. She currently is an assistant manager at a hotel in New Orleans.
  • Luanne Lui, the youngest of all the backyard kids, recently graduated from Humongous State University, where she played softball. She is pursuing a graduate degree but has not yet decided in what yet.
  • Reese Worthington played soccer in college and has begun a career in finance and was recently featured in a news story about his large stamp collection.
  • Every “Where Are They Now” article has a sob story. And in this case, it’s the fate of Jorge Garcia, the bespectacled kid with a weird swing. Garcia passed away at the age of 16 when he was killed in a hit-and-run not far from Parks Department Field #2, where his family had recently sponsored the building of a new concession stand. Despite a hefty reward offered by his family, no perpetrator was found until several years later, when an anonymous tip led police to a man who quickly confessed to the crime. Due to the tip being anonymous, the reward money was donated to the local Backyard Sports organization and also used to create a scholarship in Jorge’s name.
  • Although she was probably the last one anyone expected to do so, Lisa Crocket eventually blossomed into a beautiful and outgoing woman and became a actress who is best known for her role as Cynthia Coat in “Pajama” Sam Peterson’s gritty reboot of Pajama Man.
  • Sunny Day currently works behind the scenes at BNN, which you may be familiar with if you play Out of the Park Baseball.
  • And finally…

Pablo Sanchez. The Secret Weapon. The undisputed greatest of all the backyard kids, who was great no matter the sport but was greatest of all in baseball. Nobody ever truly knew much about him, as he only seemed to know Spanish and usually just let his skills do the talking. At least, that’s what everybody thought. In reality, Pablo spoke perfect English, he had learned Spanish- and become instantly fluent in it- in school. And, as he continued to rule anything and everything he tried his hand at, certain eyes were drawn to him. Rumors began to spread of a child who would break all existing sports paradigms, the sports equivalent of a nuclear weapon. Whatever team that would get him would instantly become the greatest on earth, whatever league that had him would become the most popular in the nation, and whatever he endorsed would instantly become the best-selling.

He would upset the balance of all sports and all the economies connected to them, bringing about chaos. Quite simply, the lords of sports decided, Pablo Sanchez could never be allowed to play sports above the youth level.

They came to him a few days before he started High School. All four commissioners of the Big 4, the heads of the IOC, FIFA, NASCAR, and ESPN’s X-Games divisions. Several major CEOs and a few big-name agents. Some say that even a few senators showed up.  Never before or since had such a conglomeration come together.

They made Pablo and his family a simple offer: In exchange for not disrupting the natural order of competition and business in the sports world, they would give him a half-billion dollars. A year. Until the age of 50, at which point it would merely become a million dollars a year.

You’d like to think that Pablo would have been incorruptible. But, alas, even he had a price. And so, the greatest athlete of all time never stepped on the field.

Instead, he became something so much greater. You see, while others would have just taken that money, gotten a nice mansion, and lived a life of leisure, Pablo would have no such things. After college (where he was Summa Cum Laude, of course), he began to travel. And he began to help people. You see, over the years, Pablo looked out for his friends. It was he who saved Marky Dubois from the deepest part of the Bayou, it was he who wrote that letter to Mikey Thomas, it was he who helped fund Annie Frazier’s business, it was he who paid Ricky Johnson’s bills, and it was he who gave the tip that led the police to the man who had killed Jorge Garcia. And, yes, it was he who was the one who helped Vicki Kawaguchi turn her life around, something for which she dedicated her book to him for.

Yes, the Secret Weapon still has been amazing, and still can do no wrong. And to this day, if you see a man driving a purple car going “putt-putt-putt” down the road, know that he probably is on his way to do something amazing again, perhaps finding out what really happened with Vinnie the Gooch or looking for what happened to Earl Grey, the soccer announcer who hasn’t been seen in nearly a decade. And you can know that he has made a difference, even if it wasn’t on a sports field…

…well… maybe.

You see, once, during his travels, he came to a town in New Jersey. While there, he went to a youth baseball practice. He saw something in one of the players, something like he once was. He went up to that player. And, in the next few hours, he taught nearly everything he knew to that kid.

You may know that “kid” as Mike Trout.

The Secret Weapon lives on.

And so begins the “Get Backyard Baseball on Steam” campaign…

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Humongous Entertainment was (and nominally remains) a video game developer formed in the 90s to make kids’ games. They made their bread and butter from two types of products: adventure/puzzle point-and-clicks like Putt-Putt and Spy Fox, and, of course, the Backyard Sports series, which I have paid tribute to previously and which the guys over at Cespedes Family Barbecue have done several brilliant posts on (like this one).

However, as sometimes happens, Humongous fell on hard times, passed between various corporations, and has most recently had it’s assets sold when Atari went under a year or two ago.

Which leads us to the current situation. Most of Humongous’ point-and-click classics, like Putt-Putt, went to a studio called Night Drive, and they have restored them and are putting them up for sale on Steam, the famous digital distribution platform that has allowed for countless of current best-sellers and forgotten classics to be put into the hands of gamers digitally. Thanks to the fact they don’t have to worry about shipping or actually creating a physical copy of the game, prices are often lower (especially for older games, although even newer games often have sales now and then).

Problem: When Atari went under, one of the things that Night Drive did not get was the Backyard series. Instead, the “Evergreen Group” did. So, the Backyard games have NOT gone to Steam.

Yet. You see, to the best of my knowledge, the Evergreen Group hasn’t done a thing with the Backyard sports stuff they have in their possession (there was a brief thing on their Twitter about “stay tune”, but…). Let’s change that with a good old fashioned campaign:

  • Tell TEG’s Twitter feed and Facebook Page that we want Backyard Baseball (and the other Backyard Sports games) on Steam.
  • Contact them through their website. (Note that the contact page may not be working, as it gave me an error message when I tried it. Still may be worth a try.)
  • Send actual snail-mail to the Evergreen Group’s headquarters at 1600 Rosecrans Avenue, Manhattan Beach, CA, 90266 (note that I am not sure if this address is current, as I found it on a old SEC info thing that popped up on Google).

So, there you go. Be courteous, be polite, and remember, the Secret Weapon forever.

 

UPDATE: Jim Wagner of the Evergreen Group has confirmed that they will relaunch the franchise, which is great. However, it really doesn’t change the goal of this Campaign to get Backyard Baseball and the other Backyard Sports games on Steam.

Happy Birthday, Pablo Sanchez

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Today, August 18, is an important day, as it is the birthday of the greatest baseball player of all time: Pablo Sanchez. Yes, Pablo Sanchez. The Secret Weapon. You remember him, from back in the day, that Mexican-American wonder-kid who couldn’t speak a lick of English (or so he claimed), but could speak the language of baseball like nobody else. He could throw a no-hitter (although pitching wasn’t his main strength), hit the ball 723 feet, and was also a great multi-sport athlete who also played soccer, hockey, football and basketball.

To this day, it is said, if you find a sandlot, close your eyes, and think of him, you can still hear his song drift through the wind, reminding us all of the legend.

Feliz cumpleaños, Pablo. Wherever you are…

 

(Oh, and I guess I should take the time to wish a happy birthday to my sister as well.)