Backyard Baseball 2007

Backyard Baseball 2007 combines the friendly playground atmosphere with your favorite MLB players. Play with or against the kids and pros! Create your own team, and control every wacky pitch, clutch hit, and sprint for home. Play with or against pros like Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez, and unlock secret pros and amazing power-ups. You'll have big-league ball right in your own backyard. Multiple modes of play - Single Game, Season Play, Batting Practice and Home Run Derby All-new Fielders' Challenge mini-game Full stats and standings in Season Play
Customer Review: Two Thumbs Down, Get Backyard Baseball 2005 Instead
Plainly put this product blatently sucks, sorry, I can almost always find something positive to say about a game but this is just a sorry excuse for a game. You cannot play with a controller on PC? What kind of baseball game doesn't let you use a controller, I mean a baseball game is perfectly in sync with the layout on a controller, to use a mouse or keyboard to play is ludicrous. I'm sure the other versions (PS2, GBA) use controllers why the heck can't they incorporate that feature into PC? I love Backyard Baseball 2005 and only bought this to upgrade a bit, thinking they would have improved a few things, but no improvements whatsoever. The field isn't fully visible when you hit the ball, it's near impossible to control fielders with a mouse, using the keyboard to hit a ball is a clunky interface at best, still no network support for multiplayer games?? C'mon it's BB 2007 not 1997. And what is this business of playing the game direct off of CDROM ? That means updates/patches are never gonna happen, you can't patch a CD Disc, UGHHHH! Pity to the peeps whose CD Rom drives poop out from whirring away for an hour to play this game. I wish I would have read the other reviews on amazon before I bought this stinker. Please listen to me, the only thing this game would be good for is a birthday present to a kid you don't like very much : ) Sorry I wish I could say better
Customer Review: great for car trips
I recommend this fun and creative game with just a couple of caveats: it can burn a lot of time and it eventually becomes boring (i.e. after some months it will collect dust on the shelf). I bought this game for my 7-year-old son after he thoroughly enjoyed Backyard Soccer. I noticed that the soccer game increased his desire to play the actual outdoor game and his performance on his real soccer team visibly improved. The baseball game has peaked his interest in trying out baseball and he is yearning for summer when he can join a real little league team. Each game can take a lot of time, and I like to limit my son's time on video games, but I think it is perfect for long car rides. We often drive for 12 hours, and my son can spend much of that time playing just this one game. It is hard to find anything else to occupy his attention for that long. I think it is fairly challenging, even at the beginning level, but with sufficient practice you can put together a winning team at any level. We also enjoy examining all the statistics, which is what makes baseball an interesting sport.

Confidence in your Baseball Pitching can be a very fickle business. Some days you can feel like you are rolling along fine. Then, suddenly one bad thing happens. Then, another happens, and then another. Then, things really start to snowball. Other times you may feel that you can do no wrong. In this state, everything happens very easily for you and, you are able to do just about whatever you want. You are in what athletes call "the zone".

The challenge for every pitcher is to try to get most of his starts into this zone range. One reason pitchers have difficulty getting into or remaining in the zone is due to a lack of concentration. A pitcher can improve his concentration during a game by following this simple ritual:

1. Block out Background Noise: Before every batter, make a point to block out all the background noise and to focus your attention only on the catcher's mitt. You do not want to be thinking about the fans, the backstop, the umpire, the batter, or anything else. All your focus is on the catcher's mitt.
2. State, "Focus on the glove": You should let any thoughts that come into your head pass right through. Do not try to think about those thoughts, just let them pass. Your focus remains on the glove and it is a good idea to even state this mantra under your breath, "focus on glove" or some similar type expression.
3. If Difficulty Focusing, Re-Focus Again: If you are still having difficulty focusing, consider bringing down the bill of your baseball cap to make even more of a tunnel for your eyes to follow to the catcher's mitt. Also, feel free to restart this process again and again until you feel you have reached the desired state.
4. Begin Your Pitching: Once you feel you have blocked out the background news, you should begin your pitching.

If you would like to see an example of this exercise, go rent the movie, "For The Love Of The Game". In this movie, Kevin Costner's character goes through this type of ritual when he uses the phrase, "Clear the mechanism" before pitching to the batter. Ultimately, you would like to get to a point where you have this level of concentration.

A second challenge some pitchers have is confidence in their pitching when a mistake is made. A smart pitcher must recognize that mistakes will happen. He could throw a hanging curveball that gets hit for a double to the wall or maybe the second basemen boots an easy grounder. Regardless of how frustrating this might be, a good pitcher must have a short term memory for these errors. Much like a quarterback who just threw an interception, he must immediately forget that error and move onto the next pitch. This type of short-term amnesia ensures the error doesn't get you twice by dwelling on it with the next batter. Here is a basic thinking ritual that can be performed to help with these situations:

1. Breathe In and Exhale After the Error: Take one deep breath and then exhale deeply. This will help you address the situation constructively.
2. State, "Oh, well. Nobody's Perfect": After you exhale, state under your breath, "Oh, well. Nobody's perfect." This step will help you compartmentalize the error.
3. Perform Focusing Ritual: Finally, start going back into the focusing ritual mentioned above. This will allow you to shift your focus away from the error and direct it toward a ritual that you have practiced again and again.

This type of thinking ritual is good because it gives you a ready-made response for a stressful situation. It allows you to address the problem right away and compartmentalize it. Once you are able to do this, it is much easier to turn your attention to the next batter. As you advance in your baseball pitching career, you will begin to notice your success in baseball pitching tends to focus more on how you handle these situations more than any other aspect of your game.

Jack Elliott, is a former player and fan of the game. To read more tips and techniques like the ones in this article, please click here: http://www.baseballtrainingtechniques.com/Baseball-Pitching.html

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Quiet Ambassador: Pee Wee Reese Story

Spring Training is usually a time for veterans and rookies alike to get in some much needed practice before starting the regular season. While there is the occasional fiery rookie trying to make the team, for the most part Spring Training is pretty subdued. All that changed when the Yankees played the Devil Rays on Tuesday.

Four days prior to Tuesday's game, a D-Rays hopeful went barreling into the Yankees' back up catcher, breaking the catcher's wrist. Joe Girardi was anything but subdued after the play, saying that it was "unnecessary" for a Spring Training game. In on the act as well was Shelley Duncan, who hinted that the D-Rays display of aggression might not be the last between the two teams.

Fast forward to Tuesday - In the first inning, the impending eruption was already brewing as Yankees pitcher Heath Phillips intentionally beaned a D-Rays batter. Then, in the second inning, all hell broke loose. The Yankees Shelley Duncan rounded first after an infield error, only to take off for second base after hesitating for a brief moment. The hesitation clearly cost him as second baseman Aki Iwamura received the ball well before Duncan arrived at second. But, it seemed as if Duncan would have it no other way as he proceeded to make a hard slide into second base with his spikes high up on the leg of Iwamura. Duncan was instantly tossed from the game, sparking a bench-clearing brawl.

This is where the powers that be in baseball need to step in and take some action. A slide like that of Duncan's, while protective in nature, was a blatant attempt to injure an opposing player. Yes, his teammate had been injured in a previous game, but it had been unintentional. The MLB needs to differentiate between good, hard play and malicious intent. If not, America's pastime is going to see a lot more of what transpired between the Yankees and Devil Rays.

Nishan Wilde is VP of Sales at RobbinsSports.com, an online resource for Baseball Uniforms, Basketball Uniforms and Track Uniforms

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