I played a few seasons of Little League when I was a kid, but to say it was a lackluster experience would be a gross understatement. I was a miserable ballplayer and spent most of my time sitting on the bench, hoping the game would soon be mercifully over so I could hit the snack bar for candy and baseball cards then head home and play video games. The few innings here and there that I actually was playing in a game were nothing short of a grueling nightmare of hoping the ball wouldn’t be hit to me and enviously eyeing my lucky teammates who were sitting out and goofing around in the dugout.

To give you an idea of how pathetic of a player I was, during my first year as a ballplayer the coach decided to play me in the position of Right Center Field. Right Field is generally reserved for the worst player because it sees the least amount of action. Right Center Field was a "special" position created for teams with younger players whose fielding abilities were so bad the coach wanted to make sure they had as little chance as possible to touch a baseball. In Right Center Field, I idly stood to the side as either the Center Fielder or Right Fielder would handle any ball hit even remotely my way. In the few rare instances that a ball actually made it to me, it always went over my head or through my legs.

I always meant well and had a decent amount of heart, but I just was not at all a contender for being a decent player. There were a couple fluke instances in which I got a hit, and one game I managed to belt a double and drive in the winning run, prompting the coach to take pity one me and give the game’s “MVP Ball.” But all in all, I was not at all an important asset to the team and it wouldn’t have affected the other players one bit had I not bothered to show up to games.

The reason I’m babbling about my embarrassing youth baseball ventures is that it’s a great metaphor for how Backyard Baseball ’09 for the Nintendo Wii is when compared to other baseball games on the system. It’s not at all a candidate for best baseball game on Wii by any stretch of the imagination, and in fact even Wii Sports baseball has it beat. In all reality, if Atari had not bothered to release it for the Wii, nobody would be any worse off. But, all the same, there is a small amount of charm and enjoyment to be found by anyone who bothers to play the game, even if they’re probably better off spending their time and money elsewhere.

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I miss the old days of sports video games. I’m now well into my 30s, but during the lazy Summer days of my youth, my friends and I would spend massive amounts of time beating the heat by lounging about indoors with the air-conditioner blasting and Nintendo controllers in our hands. The thing that was so alluring about sports games back then was that game developers weren’t afraid to make their games cute, and we weren’t afraid to play them if they were. Most sports games of yesteryear lacked the detailed realism of the games of today, which was obviously due to the limitations of the hardware at the time. Yet, because of these restrictions, developers were forced to become creative and took their designs down various courses, often towards the endearing end of art direction. RBI Baseball on the Nintendo Entertainment System is exceptionally more adorable than MLB 08: The Show on the Playstation 3, for instance.

This past year U.S. gamers were treated to a gem of a baseball game called MLB Power Pros which was published by 2K Sports, developed by Konami, and released for both the Playstation 2 and the Nintendo Wii. And, be still my old-school heart, the game was really cute! On first glance, the MLB Power Pros’ heartwarmingly stylized characters might look like they were created with kids in mind, but to anyone who took the time to sit down and play the game found that—surprise!—it was just as deep and satisfying as any of the more realistic-looking competitors on the market. In fact, of all baseball games to have hit store shelves last year, I consider MLB Power Pros to be the best all-around game available for baseball fans.

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