Dec 10, 1997 Share this Rating. Title: Backyard Baseball (Video Game 1997) 8.3 /10. Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. Aug 10, 2011 Another favorite of mine. If you put him and Achmed on the same team, they'll perform better like the Webber twins. Sadly, the computer doesn't want you putting both on the same team in. Aug 01, 2016 Backyard Baseball brings the excitement of summer ball games to the Nintendo GameCube system-with all new 3D graphics! Catch all the great baseball excitement with the Backyard Kids and real pro baseball players as kids. Pick your team, position players and choose a field to play on for single games or an entire season.
Hidden in plain sight, every MLB team’s website links to a list of its player’s walk-up and warmup song choices. The lists feature rosters updated for 2017, but some of the information appears to be outdated as not all of the songs named are the players’ actual songs for this season. But because these lists exist on official team websites and appear to represent the most recent and most comprehensive effort at documenting every MLB player’s associated music, I seized my discovery of said lists as an excuse to comb through every one compiling a master ranking of the best songs used to accompany baseball players.
Again: Some of these are likely now inaccurate. But as best as I can figure out, all the players listed have used song in question at some point. I included a couple not named on the MLB.com master list that I confirmed with my own ears by hearing them at ballparks.
This ranking is based on a variety of criteria, including the quality of the song itself and the originality of the choice. I leaned toward song choices that I find especially entertaining, as baseball is for entertainment. I mostly ignored the songs and artists picked most frequently, because way too many guys use Drake, Sweet Home Alabama, AC/DC, Daddy Yankee, Jason Aldean, and someone named Brantley Gilbert. It seems like every team has a guy using the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Can’t Stop.
If this list appears biased toward songs I personally enjoy, that’s OK: It so happens my opinions are the correct ones.
EXPLICIT CONTENT WARNING: Many of the following videos include explicit lyrics and/or suggestive imagery. The video for song No. 59, the one chosen by Padres’ infielder Allen Cordoba, probably should not be watched in any sort of workplace.
73. Chad Qualls: Killing in the Name Of
Chad Qualls will not do what you tell him. Presumably he’s done warming up by the time that part comes on, and I’m not sure the Rockies would abide that. Somewhat predictably, a bunch of guys use Rage Against the Machine songs. Ol’ Chad Qualls here stands in for all of them. Most of their songs open pretty triumphantly, so they’re always a solid if easy choice.
72. Scott Kazmir: Kashmir
A handful of guys use it, but Kazmir gets the nod for the name connection, and Zeppelin needs to be on the list somewhere.
71. Cameron Maybin: Look Alive
70. Shin-Soo Choo: Regulate
Oh hell yes, Shin-Soo Choo.
69. Alex Colome: Tiempos
I had never heard this song before but it makes me want to break stuff. Colome’s a really good closer, which adds some weight.
68. Howie Kendrick: Dey Know
Good horn sample to herald a forthcoming Howie Kendrick at-bat.
67. Brad Miller: Tha Crossroads
The first of three Bone Thugs-N-Harmony songs on this list. Apparently they’re enjoying a revival among baseball player. At the outset of compiling this, I would’ve guessed Miller would land higher. But choosing Bone Thugs’ biggest hit counts as a mark against him.
66. Chase d’Arnaud: Pony
Late-90s R&B seems to be huge among baseball players right now. I’m very much for it.
65. Nick Hundley: Shine
Here for its randomness.
64. Chris Carter: Mr. Carter
63. Zac Curtis: God’s Gonna Cut You Down
This song was huge among big-league relievers for a couple years and still shows up as the warmup jam for a few bullpen arms. It remains a badass choice, even if it’s a bit overused by now. I remember lefty Joe Beimel as a pioneer of its usage.
62. A.J. Ramos: Power
Might be a better choice for teammate Giancarlo Stanton.
61. Juan Lagares: Hot in Herre
I aspire to someday Ted be as good as Nelly at randomly inserting my name into the middle of sentences.
60. Mallex Smith: Head Bussa
Mallex Smith probably heard himself described as “scrappy” a thousand times before deciding to go with a Lil Scrappy banger.
59. Allen Cordoba: Fever
Really, don’t click on the video if anyone can see your computer screen. It’s pretty much all butts.
58. Ryon Healy: No Diggity
I always link No Diggity with two other bumping ’90s R&B jams. All three land somewhere on this list. I’ll tell you when we get there.
57. Francisco Cervelli: That’s Amore
Points for creativity, singability.
56. Andrew Bailey: Sweet Dreams
Pretty bleak, Andrew Bailey. Industrial rock and alternative metal are fairly common, but this is especially plodding and ominous.
55. Brandon Finnegan: Bump In The Trunk
Yes!
54. Adrian Gonzalez: El Mariachi Loco
53. Chad Pinder: Whoomp! (There it is)
Also a song used by multiple dudes. Still funny.
52. Nori Aoki: Johnny B. Goode
51. Chris Hatcher: Let Me Clear My Throat
Fun fact: About a decade ago, I wrote a list of recommended unused closer songs. This was on it, and it’s good someone’s going with it. Turns the ballpark into a party.
50. Brandon Belt: All I Do Is Win
Hard to believe there aren’t 30 players using this.
49. Tyler Glasnow: Smooth Operator
Came out four years before Tyler Glasnow was born.
48. Evan Scribner: Epic Sax Guy
47. Michael Martinez: Te De Campana
I was not familiar with this song, but Michael Martinez’s awesome hair implies good taste in music. This is a jam.
46. Josh Phegley: My Brain is Hanging Upside Down
There are so few punk songs in use. Last year, Phegley used the Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ The Impression That I Get. He’s turning in his plaid blazer for a leather jacket, apparently.
45. Wade Davis: Ackrite
44. Byron Buxton: Return of the Mack
No. 2 in the aforementioned No Diggity trio.
43. Clay Buchholz: Hold The Line
I want so badly for Clay Buchholz to be a huge Toto fan.
42. Randal Grichuk: Here Comes The Boom
Somehow, Randal Grichuk is the only dude on the Cardinals using Nelly. Embarrassing. Every guy on the Cardinals should use Nelly.
41. Mike Fiers: Saw (theme)
40. George Springer: Bouncin’ Back
Funky as heck.
39. Kelvin Herrera: El Abayarde
38. Matt Garza: All Eyez On Me
37. Carlos Carrasco: Summer of ’69
Backyard Baseball Soundtrack Free
Bryan Adams. Nice.
36. Jesse Hahn: Monstar’s Anthem
Were the Monstars quietly the greatest rap supergroup ever assembled? Discuss.
35. Derek Holland: Dark Knight Rises
A few guys go with movie and/or TV themes. They all have the capacity to make a player entering a baseball game seem far more epic an event than it actually is. For it.
34. Austin Romine: Bad Boys
33. Adam Eaton: This Is How We Do It
The third and best entry in the No Diggity group.
32. Derek Law: I Fought The Law
Oh, I get it! More guys should use The Clash. If there’s ever again a player named Rudy, he needs to use Rudie Can’t Fail or get DFA’d immediately.
31. Joaquin Benoit: Fireball
Benoit throws pretty hard, so “Fireball” seems appropriate. Plus this song makes my hips shimmy involuntarily.
30. Tom Koehler: Still Fly
Tom Koehler seems pretty cool. We need to bring back the use of “fly.”
29. Miguel Gonzalez: El Hijo Del Pueblo
28. Brent Suter: Jurassic Park (theme)
27. Dillon Gee: Nuthin’ But A G Thang
Obviously.
26. Trevor Cahill: White Rabbit
Not the direction I would’ve guessed for Trevor Cahill. Pretty trippy.
25. Clayton Richard: Ignition (remix)
Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce.
24. Zach Davies: It’s Tricky
23. Didi Gregorius: Notorious B.I.G.
“Notorious” sounds just like “Gregorius.” It plays.
22. Todd Frazier: Fly Me To The Moon
Frazier reps New Jersey so hard.
21. Cory Gearrin: Welcome To the Terrordome
20. Trevor Plouffe: Shine On You Crazy Diamond
I assume this isn’t the case, but it’d be pretty good if Trevor Plouffe made the whole stadium wait 26 minutes for the PA to play all parts of Shine On You Crazy Diamond in their entirety before every one of his at-bats. Probably Rob Manfred wouldn’t go for that.
19. John Lackey: Friends in Low Places
Is this song annoying? Yeah, it’s pretty annoying. But it’s so good for John Lackey, a guy who seems like he’s probably thrown down at a honky-tonk more than once.
18. Felix Hernandez: Down With The King
Being nicknamed “King Felix” opens up a lot of options. This is a good one.
17. Zack Greinke: Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Maybe shouldn’t have signed with the Diamondbacks.
Backyard Baseball Soundtrack 2017
16. Jacob May: Beware
Big Pun? Let’s hang out, Jacob May.
15. Bryce Harper: Feelin’ Good
Very few guys in the Majors could pull off Michael Buble songs. Harper is one of them.
14. Noah Syndergaard: Game of Thrones
When you look like Noah Syndergaard and throw like Noah Syndergaard, there’s really no wrong direction you could take with your warmup music. This works, but so would Why Can’t We Be Friends?
13. Robbie Ross: Man of Constant Sorrow
Now Fenway Park’s a hoedown.
12. Dustin Pedroia: Real (Expletive) G’s
You might not associate Dustin Pedroia with classic gangsta rap, but Pedroia plays with a chip on his shoulder that makes a diss track seem appropriate.
11. Kendrys Morales: In The Summertime
He’s not trying to be ironic or anything. Kendrys Morales just digs this song:
10. Andrew Miller: Beat It
Michael Jackson songs are generally underused. Miller is good enough to pull off just enough anything.
9. Henry Owens: Fame
Funky, freaky. Owens is in Class AAA right now, denying Red Sox fans their Bowie.
8. Sonny Gray: Stacy’s Mom
What?
7. Taylor Jungmann: YMCA
It’d be silly enough on it’s own, but wait: Jungmann, there’s no need to feel down, I said, Jungmann, pick yourself off the ground. Overplayed in stadiums, certainly, but completely underused as a funny warmup choice. <
6. Wilmer Flores: I’ll Be There For You
True story: Long before Flores became a fan favorite in New York, he learned English by watching every episode of Friends.
5. Joe Biagini: One
As in “is the loneliest number.” It’s so sad! Last year, Biagini used Tears Of A Clown. Joe Biagini rules. All relievers should emulate Joe Biagini. Shoutout to disco John Lennon in the pink scarf really owning those backup vocals and handclaps in the video.
4. Kyle Schwarber: Thuggish Ruggish Bone
Schwarber’s an Ohio native, so he’s got a good claim to using Bone Thugs. But also — and I have no idea what this is the case — if someone came up to me and asked, “which player is baseball’s most ‘ruggish bone?'” I’d almost certainly say Schwarber. I don’t know what ruggish means but I believe it describes Kyle Schwarber.
3. Jake Lamb: Shoop
Girls, what’s my weakness? Late ’90s R&B.
2. Francisco Lindor: The Humpty Dance
Easily the best development of the 2017 season to date is that Francisco Lindor, budding megastar, is using The Humpty Dance. Damn near looptid.
1. Yoenis Cespedes: Circle of Life (intro)
The main thing about Cespedes is that it feels like he’s about to hit a home run literally every time he walks to the plate. The opening notes of The Lion King make the perfect accompaniment: recognizable, dramatic, and full of wonder. It’s funny and beautiful and spectacular.
Take Our PollFinally, we’ve arrived at the matchup we have all been waiting for. When this tournament started, it seemed as though these two franchises were destined to meet here in the finals, and even though many other games have plenty of merits, these two have stood the test of time and always won the “classic baseball video game mentions in social media” awards. MVP Baseball 2005 and its soundtrack gets mentioned at least once a month on Reddit, and there have been multiple Carlos BeltranBackyard Baseball 2001 tweets with thousands of responses, just to name a few examples. These games are titans of the industry and fondly remembered by all who have come in contact with them, but which game is better? Only one can be crowned the champion of our tournament, and Dave Cherman and I sat down to have a friendly debate about which game was the better game.
Dave Cherman: Anything but Backyard Baseball being in the final would have been a mistake. If it hadn’t made it, then clearly there would have been something wrong with the tournament, or the polls, or something, because this game needed to be in the championship. It’s a phenomenal game. The concept and the gameplay all still hold up in 2019. It provides so much joy when I’m able to play it.
Myles Nelson: Sure, but you talk about gameplay, and that’s the No. 1 thing that MVP Baseball 2005 did best. This game is 14 years old, and I’ve yet to find a game that has better gameplay when it comes to a realistic baseball experience, and that includes games that are still being made like MLB: The Show. MVP Baseball 2005’s gameplay is far and away better than Backyard Baseball 2001’s, and that, to me, matters most.
Cherman: The reason I can’t pick any MLB-simulation style game to beat out Backyard Baseball 2001 is because if you gave these games in our tournament to a 12-year-old today, they would pick up MVP Baseball 2005 and say, “Who the hell are these players? I don’t know who they are; why do I care about any of them?” Whereas with Backyard Baseball 2001, you don’t need to have been a baseball fan in 2005 to connect with Pete Wheeler, or with Kenny Kawaguchi, or Luanne Lui. You have to be of a certain age to enjoy these simulation-style games, but anyone, born at any time, can enjoy Backyard Baseball.
Nelson: Unless that kid was a historian of the game and wanted to learn about prior generations of players.
Cherman: He’d probably want more than just the players active in 2005, though.
Nelson: OK, I’ll grant you that. MVP Baseball 2005 does have a vast amount of unlockable, historical legends, but point still taken. But you don’t have to necessarily connect with the players to enjoy good gameplay, and I honestly think that just in terms of gameplay, MVP Baseball is still the best game available today for that. If that hypothetical 12-year-old baseball fan wanted to play the best baseball game he could get, he would want to be playing MVP Baseball, not Backyard Baseball.
Cherman: But we aren’t comparing MVP 05 vs. MLB: The Show or any of those other games, we are comparing it to Backyard Baseball, where he would have an easier time picking up the controls and able to start enjoying the game right away, which could more quickly inspire a pure love of baseball.
Nelson: Backyard Baseball is easier to pick up—absolutely. There’s not much of a skill gap, though, so while he would have an easier time picking it up, he would also get bored of it quicker. When I went back and played this game for the purposes of my review (though to be honest, I didn’t need to play it to do my review; I could have done it from memory), I played the game on the hardest difficulty and still scored 19 runs in the first inning. Now I did have all the best kids on my team, like Pablo Sanchez and Keisha Phillips, but the game was still too easy. I have yet to be an above-.500 player on MVP Baseball 2005’s hardest difficulty, and I’ve been playing that for 14 years. So this 12-year-old might play Backyard Baseball more at first, but he’ll play MVP more in the long run as it will provide more of a challenge.
Cherman: To go back to one thing you just said there: You didn’t have to play Backyard Baseball 2001 to do your review for it. You knew exactly what it was already, because no one forgets Backyard Baseball. That’s how memorable it is. All of us know Backyard Baseball, we haven’t forgotten any of the players, or any of the mechanics. Hell, everyone knows Pablo Sanchez—even people who haven’t played the game themselves. You didn’t need to go back and play it, because you’ll never forget it.
Nelson: I’m so mad that I just handed you a point on a silver platter. Ugh, OK, let’s just recap where we’re at right now. Gameplay-wise, I think we can agree that Backyard Baseball has easier mechanics, makes it easier to pick up and play, but MVP Baseball has more complex and true-to-baseball mechanics. As far as replayability, they both have points there, MVP Baseball’s skill gap keeps me and others always coming back for that, but Backyard Baseball gives more customization with rosters and it’s easier to come back to after some time away from playing the game. Agreed?
Cherman: Agreed.
Nelson: Let’s not talk graphics too much because that’s a win for Backyard Baseball. MVP Baseball didn’t have bad graphics for the time; unfortunately 14 years have passed and the graphics have not held up, whereas Backyard Baseball’s cartoonish style has held up much better and is definitely more memorable. But let’s talk sound. If MVP Baseball is mentioned online anywhere, someone inevitably responds with how amazing that soundtrack is.
Cherman: Yeah, it’s an incredible soundtrack. Undoubtedly.
Nelson: And the commentary team of Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow are pretty good too.
Cherman: Well, yeah they’re good, but they are no Sunny Day and Vinnie the Gooch. Those are the best commentators in the tournament, and the only place that they lack is just pure range of recorded lines. If Backyard Baseball had given them more phrases, they would be perfect. And they are already the best.
Nelson: OK, but Kuiper and Krukow are no slouches, and they really bring what MVP Baseball needed from them, which was a professional booth that sounded like a real game being played on television, while not being boring, or repetitive, or annoying. And they succeed at that. Which kind of makes me realize that the conclusion we can draw from this is that Backyard Baseball 2001 and MVP Baseball 2005 set out to do different things. Backyard Baseball wanted to make a Little League baseball game that celebrated the fun of going to the sandlot with your friends on a summer day, picking teams, and having a good time, and MVP Baseball wanted to make the best MLB experience that they could. And both games knocked it out of the park.
Cherman: Amen to that.
Nelson: So I think, really, the winner of this matchup is going to come down to which of those experiences speaks to the voters more. Do they want the fun, pick up-and-play sandlot game, or do they want the MLB experience?
Cherman: The winner of this thing is us, for getting to play both of these awesome games.
Featured Image by Justin Paradis (@FreshMeatComm on Twitter)