Backyard Baseball – Save State Hacking Guide

BACKYARD BASEBALL 1997 SEASON PLAY HACKING GUIDE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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!. Contact Information

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(5/31/2010) I am willing to answer whatever questions you may have about BB97 
or the contents of this guide. You can reach me at the following email:

eszettg AT gmail DOT com

(C) Compiled entirely by Andrew Marchetta for use ONLY at GameFAQs and my 
personal webspaces for PRIVATE, NON-PROFIT use. Any copies not from these 
sources or any copies which have changed hands alongside money have been 
fraudulently distributed from these official sources and should be reported to 
me immediately. Please include any identifying information on the perpetrators 
when possible.

0. Table of Contents
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

!. Contact Information
0. Table of Contents

I. Introduction
II. The Tools You Need
III. Locating the Files
IV. The Coach File
- IVA. General
- IVB. Player
- IVC. Season
-- IVCi. Schedule
-- IVCii. Roster
--- IVCiia. Defensive Positions
--- IVCiib. Team Information
--- IVCiic. Batting Order
- IVD. Roster Quirks
-- IVDi. Clone Players and Eighteen-Player Teams
-- IVDii. The Generic Players
V. Team Info Appendix
- VA. Adjectives
- VB. Nouns
- VC. Colors
VI. Player Appendix
- VIA. Backyard Kids
- VIB. Generic Kids
- VIC. Special Cases
VII. Acknowledgements
VIII. Version Info
IX. Answers Guide

I. Introduction
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was delighted to discover that this game still existed thirteen years after I 
played it as a kid. Now that I have become more knowledgeable about the way 
computers work, this game was simply begging for my 21-year-old self to take it 
to the next level of understanding. Aside from merely learning the specifics of 
the game and the strengths of each players, I wanted to play God and crack the 
code of the game. I decided this fine May evening would be the best time to 
discover this art.

There is a bad part to this story, but the rest has been nothing but good. The 
bad part is that apparently nobody has bothered to do this before me. Google 
comes up completely empty-handed for any real resources on hacking this ancient 
game. The good part is that the process has proven to be mind-bogglingly easy. 
I'm surprised I didn't discover this as a kid. This repository will grow as I 
learn more and more about the game, but no matter what I write here, it will be 
novel information. You will not able to find this out anywhere else.

Before you begin reading this guide, it would be good to know the limitations 
of what I am covering. This guide will not allow you to artificially inflate 
the stats of your players, instantly strike out every player, or make every hit 
a home run. If you're interested in these things, start purchasing some 
literature on reverse engineering. These things are hard-coded into the game 
and need to be changed on a software level.

This guide will allow you to manipulate the settings of the game and is focused 
entirely on season play. You can have the same player come up to bat every time 
(and yes, the game will duplicate the player as much as necessary). You can 
also put the same nine players on the field when playing defense, though as you 
will find out later this is not a good idea. You can also change who is on the 
opposing teams, their mascots, who you will play next, and plenty of other 
settings. Consider this scope before you consult this guide for advice. It is 
not my fault if you set yourself up for disappointment because my guide won't 
let you do so-and-so. If you're ready to have some fun, read on.

II. The Tools You Need
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Luckily, the process of hacking BB97 season play only requires a copy of the 
game (very easily obtainable in this modern Internet age, I needn't explain how 
you can get it) and a text editor. For this purpose, I naturally recommend the 
no-frills, no-nonsense Notepad for the job. Since you'll be accessing your .BBL 
file very often in the process of hacking, you might want to associate these 
files with your program of choice so you have double-click access to editing 
them from Windows Explorer.

III. Locating the Files
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

No matter what Windows system you play this game on, there should be a file in 
your C:\Windows\ directory called hegames.ini which is automatically created 
upon initializing the game. For our purposes, there is only one entry you need 
from this, and it is called SaveGamePath. By default, this should be 
C:\hegames\. You can change this if you want, but there's no need to unless 
you're doing some heavy experimentation (keep in mind being a Windows 3.1 
compatible game that 8.3 file naming conventions are in effect).

Go to Windows Explorer and point to the save game path. Depending on what you 
have done in the game, there should be a variety of files here:

baseball.ini - associates BBL/BBT files with coach names
baseball.sg0 - indicates games saved via the Save Game feature from the dugout 
screen
baseball.sg1 - contains the actual data represented by baseball.sg0, this file 
is relatively speaking very large and completely pointless for humans to 
manipulate and so will not be covered by this manual
coach#.bbl - contains all of the vitals about your team, changing this file is 
the meat of this guide
coach#.bbt - stat data for the associated .BBL file, it is not necessary to 
change this by hand
fame.bbl - hall of fame information, can be changed but is not an especially 
important file, so this will be covered in a later version of the guide
records.bbl - records file, also can be changed but again this is a second 
priority for me

Notice that there are multiple copies of coach files, a pair for each coach in 
the game. You might be asking which one of thees files should I be changing? 
Here, you need to use the baseball.ini file for its only purpose. Open up the 
file. You should see two variables underneath a header called [Baseball], one 
containing a list of numbers and the other a list of coach names. An example 
from my own file will make this easy to understand:

[Baseball]
_CoachFiles=2,3,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27
,28,29,30,1,4
_CoachNames=ANDREW,SANCHEZ,FUBARSTAN

_CoachFiles is simply a running list of the numbers used for coach files. The 
game manages this internally and so there is no need to touch it. Obviously it 
can be changed, but since the only useful effect is changing the order of the 
coaches in the selection list, I will not cover it. It does have some use by 
just observing it, though. Notice that numbers 1 and 4 are at the end of the 
list. These were accounts which were previously created but were lated deleted.

_CoachNames associates these numbers with the name of the coaches on a one-to-
one basis. Just match the coach name with the number that's in the same 
position. Since we have three coaches here, take the first three numbers and 
pair them up. ANDREW's files are marked with 2, SANCHEZ with 3, and FUBARSTAN 
with 5. It's that simple.

Later on, you can become more proficient and create coach files completely from 
scratch. I won't be covering the details on that in this guide, but a read-
through should make this process intuitive to the skilled hacker. This is the 
file that lets the game recognize those coaches. Just add a comma to the end of 
the _CoachNames list and insert in the name of your new coach, using only 
capital letters and non-leading spaces. You have a ten-character limit. Make 
sure your files correspond to the next number in the _CoachFiles list.

Now let's move on to the coach files themselves. Here, I'll be working with 
FUBARSTAN's account, so I want to open the file coach5.bbl.

IV. The Coach File
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is the big kahuna. All of the important information about your season 
comes from this file. I will break this down into sub-chapters based on the 
sections of the coach file itself, which is structurally no different than an 
INI file.

IVA. General
~~~~~~~~~~~~

The [General] Header contains several bits of information for all files. Many 
of them seem to be just for show, but nevertheless I will cover them all.

complete, as far as I can tell, should always be some positive number. Any 
other value generates an error message that instructs you to erase the file 
because it is corrupted. Changing it back to 1 (or any other positive value) 
removes this error message. I have yet to find out if this actually does 
something. The game only seems to put a 1 for this value.

game simply says which game of the season you are currently on. This number can 
range in value from 1 to 25. You will need to refer back to this value 
frequently when manipulating the scheduling data, which will come in the next 
section on rosters.

field should logically affect which field you play on, but it seems like a dead 
variable to me. Perhaps it does something I'm not yet aware of. I have seen the 
game save 5 and 8 into this value.

innings is either 12 or 18 and represents double the number of innings you have 
selected in-game (6 or 9). Strangely, changing this seems to have no effect on 
the gameplay.

ID seems to have something to do with when you created the team. It follows the 
format:

MMDDYYHHNN

where MM is the month without leading zeros, DD is the day, YY is the last two 
digits of the year, HH is the military-time hour and NN are the minutes. There 
are some oddities in this system, though (right now I'm staring at an ID which 
says it's the 32nd of May). It does not seem to have any effect on gameplay.

skill is 1, 2, or 3 which correspond to Easy, Medium, and Hard. Nothing 
complicated here.

coach is the name of the coach. Yes, you can have a different coach name in 
your dugout than the one on the sign-in sheet. This is rendered wherever your 
coach name appears in the dugout or tournament schedule. It will only take the 
first ten letters from this string and capitalize them all, so be warned. Aside 
from A-Z, only hyphens, periods, and spaces will appear. Spaces sub out any 
other characters.

pso seems to be the length of the current series for post-season games. This 
would be 3 for the all star series and the super entire nation tournament, and 
5 for the ultra grand championship. This value is 0 otherwise. Since all games 
you will actually play are already saved into the schedule variables, I'm 
pretty sure this is a dead variable. Nevertheless, the game saves it.

The following three data only show up on certain postseason triggers.

tot was 20 for my completed file. I suppose this might represents the total 
number of wins, but I'll need to complete a season to be sure. This will come 
out in the next edition of the guide, because right now I'm just trying to get 
this science off the ground.

totcoach was 50 for my completed file. Again, no idea on this one until I 
complete a season.

over is either absent (equals zero) or equals one. If it equals one, the season 
is complete and the game will not allow you to play any more matches.

IVB. Player
~~~~~~~~~~~

The player header seems to affect some purely cosmetic attributes about the 
game which are only visible on the sign-in list.

TEAM-NAME-1 changes value depending on the leading adjective you pick for your 
team when you first create the file, but does not seem to affect anything else 
within the game. As such, I will not bother making a list of corresponding 
adjectives. I suspect they are arranged alphabetically, though.

TEAM-NAME-2 is the noun name of your team, which merely affects the display 
icon in the coach list:

1      All-Stars
2      Bombers
3      Fishes
4      Giants
5      Hornets
6      Melonheads
7      Monsters
8      Rockets
9      Socks
10      Wombats

Any higher value seems to crash the game. Any lower value defaults to 1.

COLOR affects the color of the display icon:

1      Red
2      Blue
3      Yellow
4      Green
5      Purple
6      Orange
7      Pink
8      White
9      Black

10 and beyond yield some very strange color combinations. There seems to be no 
limit to these, so knock yourself out and discover one that suits you. I 
certainly won't list them since there are more important things to handle.

IVC. Season
~~~~~~~~~~~

The [Season] section is the meat of the file. This is where you can make the 
most impressive and groundbreaking alterations to the game, all the way down to 
the positions and batting orders of every team in the season and the ability to 
use any character in the game (yes, even the generic-looking opponents).

When you first look at this file, you'll see a strange garble of letters. 
Perhaps you might think there are a few patterns, but you can't quite put your 
thumb on them. Rest assured that you're absolutely correct: these letters 
determine practically everything about the specifics of your coaching 
experience.

Before we can cover any ground, you need to start thinking like a computer 
program yourself and realize that these letters are not letters at all. They 
are numbers. Every important piece of information signified here is a pair of 
two letters which represents some value. In fact, the letters are actually 
digits just like 0-9. Except here, the digits are A-P, and we're not in base 
10. The game makers decided for whatever reason that base 17 would be the most 
logical solution to store the game's season data.

This may sound confusing, but it's really not that hard to get. Since we're 
dealing with data in pairs of digits, the range of possible values stretches 
from AA to PP. If we add one to AA, we end up with AB. Add one more and we get 
AC. Eventually, we work our way up to AP, and adding one more gives us BA. We 
can keep going and get BB, BC, BD, etc. If this doesn't make things crystal-
clear, I can't possibly explain this concept to you. Except for the player data 
and possibly game scores, values in the file will rarely go much higher than 
AM, so don't be scared.

IVCi. Schedule
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With this explained, I can begin with an exploration of the schedule variables. 
These contain all of the data for particular match-ups. The game variable from 
the [General] section tells the game which match-up it should be invoking and 
filling in data for, and since this value is never 0 the first entry here is 
merely a placeholder. It's a row of seven AAs; just leave them be.

The rest, however, are vital to the game. Let me take an entry from a game I 
just recently completed next to the shorthand:

schedule1=AAAGABAMABAAAA

With the knowledge I have given you on base 17 numerical representation, we can 
proceed to break this down into pairs and analyze it.

AA|AG|AB|AM|AB|AC|AA
ZZ|Ma|Cm|PR|CR|Ca|Ho

This is very simple to understand, there are only seven values here.

ZZ: The first pair (AA), as far as I can tell, doesn't serve any purpose. No 
matter what it always seems to remain the same value too. We'll just ignore it 
and move on.

Ma: The second pair (AG) indicates the [Ma]tch-up this particular schedule 
string represents. As I'll explain to you later, each season file has ten teams 
saved into it. One of these teams is yours, seven of these teams are your 
league opponents, and the other two are rival championship teams. This variable 
tells the game which roster to face off against you, and since AG in decimal is 
6, this game will be against the sixth roster.

There are some special factors to consider here when interpreting this value. 
AA is used for the all-city playoffs match and represents the highest-ranked 
team in the league besides you at the end of the regular season. (Obviously if 
you don't make 1st or 2nd, the game ends and the over variable will be set to 
1). AB-AH are all regular league teams. AI is always your rival in the super 
entire nation tournament, and AJ is always your rival in the ultra grand 
championship. Yes, you will only ever face off against one of these teams. The 
victor of the other match-up in that bracket is predetermined from the moment 
you create your file.

Cm: This is a very simple flag. AA means the game hasn't been played yet, AB 
means it has. Any other value is assumed by the game to be AA (and it will 
never save another value into this spot). Since this is AB, I've already played 
this game, and it will be grayed out in the calendar schedule.

PR and CR: This is the score of the game, represented in very-easy-to-
comprehend base 17 digits. If you're still having trouble getting them, feel 
free to fiddle around with these values. PR is your score and CR is the 
computer's. Don't hesitate to make the computer's higher than yours - the game 
will make it seem like you lost, but that's purely cosmetic and has no bearing 
on the actual standings. As you will see, those are saved in the rosters 
section of the file.

Ca: This indicates where on the calendar the game will show up. AA is the first 
day, AB is the second, AC the third, BA the seventeenth, etc. Of course, like 
all logically designed systems, the location of the games has absolutely 
nothing to do with the order you will play it in. That is dictated entirely by 
the order of these values themselves, from schedule1 to schedule25.

A few more pointers: This is useless for the post-season games not represented 
on the calendar, for which the game defaults AA in this position. Secondly, 
nothing stops the game from displaying matches beyond the physical calendar 
itself. Try putting CD in for this value and watch where the game ends up. The 
fun never ends!

Ho: Another very simple flag. AA is a home game, AB is an away game. No reason 
to put anything else here (but it won't hurt the game if you do, higher values 
are simply assumed to be away games). Along with the match-up indicator, this 
is the only value here that actually affects gameplay.

IVCii. Roster
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is the meat of the section. All of the teams, the positions, their batting 
orders, and everything in between is represented in this section. Because this 
section has by far the most expandability, I'll be putting the specific values 
for the variables in the appendices to reduce clutter.

First of all, roster0 is your team. Everything that makes it what it is comes 
from this crazy string of values. Here's the roster0 string from one of my 
crash-test files:

AKBJAMBBBEBFAEANADAAAEAIACABACAMAEBJAKBEBFADANBB

Talk about a mouthful! We're not going anywhere without some organization to 
this section, so I'm going to break it down into three convenient sections for 
ease of human understanding. Remember that this all must return to this 
original state before we put it back in the file.

Throughout this section, I'm going to quiz you to test your understanding of 
the data contained in this string. Questions will be marked with the symbol 
(Q#), where # is just a number. The answers are at the very end of this guide, 
but don't check them until you're finished since they're all bundled together. 
Grab a Notepad and start jotting.

IVCiia. Defensive Positions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AK|BJ|AM|BB|BE|BF|AE|AN|AD
LF|CF|RF|3B|2B|1B|SS|Ca|Pi

At last, we can begin to talk substance. The first eighteen digits contain all 
of the team's defensive information. Each pair of digits refers to a specific 
player (there's a whole bunch of them you aren't using, so look at the 
appendix). The position of the player data in the string tells the game which 
position they will play on the field. With the exception of the last two very 
obvious positions, I've used standard baseball abbreviations here to signify 
the arrangement the game looks for when reading this file. The game uses them 
too, so no excuses here for not knowing them.

Keep in mind the implications of maintaining this arrangement. Every time you 
switch up the positions in the strategy there is a file I/O operation which 
actively updates this orientation. Remember this when toying around with your 
files. In fact, it is generally a good idea to always go back to the main menu 
of the program before tampering with any of the data in this file. It won't be 
disastrous if you don't since the file isn't constantly in access, but again 
it's just good practice.

(Q1) Before moving on, see if you can use the player list appendix to determine 
who's playing each position in this example.

IVCbii. Team Information
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AA|AE|AI|AC|AB|AC
ZZ|Ad|No|Co|Wi|Lo

The next twelve digits contain data about the team itself.

ZZ: Again, no idea what this does. It seems to vary wildly between teams. I've 
seen values from AA to LI. Once I complete a season and save each file 
variation, I will report back on this guy if I notice he's doing anything.

Ad: This describes the adjective used to describe the team. It's alphabetically 
organized from the list of available adjectives, but for your convenience I've 
included it in the appendix.

No: This contains the noun for the given team. This is also alphabetically 
arranged, but this one is a bit more involved since there are some hidden 
values this can possess which are only relevant to season play. Again, check 
out the appendix for details.

Wi/Lo: Here's where the vaunted win/loss record is saved. These values are 
simply pure numbers in base 17 format and affect the gameplay by determining 
which teams make the playoffs. When created naturally by the game, they will 
always total the number of games played for each team, but when altered by a 
human they can both be anywhere from AA to PP. Knock your socks off with this 
one.

(Q2) You know the drill. Tell me the name of the team, its color, and its 
record.

IVCiic. Batting Order
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AM|AE|BJ|AK|BE|BF|AD|AN|BB
1H|2H|3H|4H|5H|6H|7H|8H|9H

The last eighteen digits are the most self-explanatory part of the string. It's 
the batting order, from one to nine.

(Q3) Now tell me who the batters are. I made it easy for you since it's from 
the same team. You can check your answers to all three questions now.


IVD. Roster Quirks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Given the extreme amount of control this method possesses over the aspects of 
the game, a few special cases emerge where the possibilities of file 
manipulation lead you to do things which would otherwise be impossible. I'll 
cover the two biggest ones my research has presented to me.

IVDi. Clone Players and Eighteen-Player Teams
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now you might be asking yourself that since the offensive and defensive 
information are saved in different parts of the roster strings, there is 
nothing stopping you from having different players on offense and defense. You 
would be wise to ask this question since this is 100% the case.

The offense and defense of a given team are entirely independent from each 
other. Even the players you select are completely divorced from each other and 
so can (yes!) be repeated any number of times. This presents a whole bunch of 
curious and interesting combinations that would probably make the bloods of the 
game designers boil. Now I will delve a little bit into the strategy of the 
game itself, but only because this very strange and unique situation is 
generated only from the file manipulation I've described in this guide.

First of all, I highly recommend against putting the same player in more than 
one position on defense. The reason I say this comes from experience, but also 
realizing what putting the same player in several positions actually means to 
the game. The game will multiply the player without a hitch, but it will not 
duplicate them. This is to say that no matter how many copies of a single 
player you put out there, he is still a single player who is governed by all 
the rules of being one person.

Let's take Ernie Steele as an example. He's a great fielder who's really tall, 
and so I really want nine copies of him. I've just completed my supposedly 
killer defense, writing in my roster0 string to equal BNBNBNBNBN... I play a 
home game, so I'm on the mound. Ernie pitches a slowball in the corner to 
(let's say) Pete Wheeler, who manages to hit an annoying grounder which rolls 
unstopped all the way to the back wall right between the fielders. Center Field 
Ernie passes the ball to Short Stop Ernie who is playing cutoff, who then 
passes it to Second Base Ernie to return it to the pitcher. Fast ol' Pete got a 
double on the play.

I'm about to pitch to Achmed Khan, but I notice Ernie is absolutely pooped now! 
His juice meter is completely depleted, and herein lies the problem of using 
nine of the same defender. Let me repeat that again: the same defender. Since 
the game doesn't consider the Ernie any different from each other, each one of 
them helps to deplete Ernie's energy meter, allowing him to go from fully 
charged to fully exhausted in a single play.

Having nine copies of the same defensive player in particular is a self-
destructive habit since this effectively shatters the concept of relief 
pitching. It's a no-win situation for you (though if you want to have a 
cakewalk through the game, it wouldn't hurt to make the other teams have nine 
of the same defender). Because energy meters are shared among all copies of the 
same player, I hesitate to even double the same defender since it will only 
help perpetuate this tragedy of the commons.

There is, however, one exception to this rule, and just one: Mr. Clanky. He is 
unique by virtue of never tiring, and makes an awesome pitcher to boot (all of 
his standard pitches are as accurate as they can be). He is rather slow for an 
outfielder, but if you're willing to put up with that he would make an 
excellent defensive player for practically every position. His player code is 
ID, which is the last one defined in the list. You know what to do now.

On the offensive end, however, I would absolutely recommend in favor of putting 
anywhere from two to nine of the same batter on your roster, just so long as 
you can ensure he will not get tired. Actually, I suspect this isn't hard at 
all precisely because you're multiplying him. Let's take Pablo Sanchez as an 
example. You've just stuffed your batting order with nine Pablo, and the first 
one is up to bat. We'll even say the nine Pablo just played a hell of a 
defensive game and have absolutely no juice left.

Here's the catch: as your bummed-out Pablo steps up to home plate, he has eight 
copies of himself just chilling in the dugout. Eight Secret Weapons means eight 
times the recovery! Offense is not very strenuous on the body, so he'll be 
recovering energy faster than he can deplete it. Once his third or fourth 
version readies his bat for the kill, he'll be fully rested and ready to hit 
sluggers and clear around the bases in no time. Multiplying players on offense 
actually helps them maintain their stamina. If BB ever had a multiplayer 
version, this would be a very, very banned tactic. Since it never was, alas, 
this remains an interesting curiosity to try out against unsuspecting 
computers.

One last oddity about offensive player duplicates is that the way the game 
handles these doppelgangers becomes clear with the summary of that player's 
performance. The second at-bat will already have data about that player's first 
at bat. The game sees them as one and the same. Expect some weird numbers for 
your hits (and errors for defensive players if you have them on your team), 
since they are also being multiplied by the number of copies you have of that 
player.

Based on these observations, the best teams statistically would have nine 
different fielders and the same extremely powerful, very fast offensive batter, 
perhaps one lefty and one righty. This subject certainly deserves more 
experimentation from intrepid season file manipulators.

Game mechanics aside, it is interesting to note where the game uses each order 
in representing your team. The defensive lineup is also used to generate the
team photo in the dugout, which also happens to change in stride with your
defensive switches. The offensive lineup is used in the player statistics for
all teams and your Meet the Players subsection of the strategy dialog.

IVDii. The Generic Players
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another interesting variable to consider is the massive number of “generic” 
kids the computer uses to fill up the opponent's teams. There are in total one
-hundred of these strange players who were, until the Great BB97 Hack of May 
2010, available only for the computer to use. That's over three times the 
number of official Backyard kids available for use. And, despite looking so 
similar to each other, they all serve very different functions based on their 
stats.

Yes, they have different stats. That is about one of the only things that's 
clear about them. Another thing that's clear is that the designers never 
intended the user to have access to them. When they are placed on a defensive 
lineup, Tony Delvecchio is used as a substitute for them in the team photo. The 
Strategy menu goes bonkers when you invoke it with these generics in tow, 
rendering up a confusing mix of background images and scrap sprites to 
represent their heads on the field and in the batting order (but it shouldn't 
crash the game).

Yet, like many other strange things in the game, this is purely cosmetic and 
their positions can be shuffled around at will once you find the clickable part 
of their unwieldy “icons”. They're in the same position you'd expect them to 
be. Manipulating them on a file level might end up being the best solution, 
which would only force you to use the Strategy menu to put in a relief pitcher 
mid-game.

In addition, the generics also tend to make the Meet the Players section spaz 
out, but it is possible to see the stats of a few of them when this section 
acts at its tamest. Unfortunately, this only happens a few lucky times, and the 
glitches they induce have the potential to even crash the game when this dialog 
is pulled up.

Could these kids be even better than the Backyard kids themselves? Sometimes I 
get that feeling myself. I see certain ones among them regularly belt my 
pitches out of the park or scramble onto first base after a disorienting bunt. 
Others among them never seem to be able to get a hit or serve up easy pitches 
for me. Whatever can be said about them now, the future will surely hold more 
answers with the assistance of more devoted testers. I will certainly keep this 
section updated if I can manage to wade through the glitches that currently 
block access to viewing their stats.

V. Team Info Appendix
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This appendix contains all of the information you can change about the teams.

VA. Adjectives
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AB      Blue
AC      Crazy
AD      Green
AE      Humongous
AF      Junior
AG      Little
AH      Mighty
AI      Red
AJ      Super-Duper
AK      White

Other combinations will either crash the game or cause glitches, including 
making Vinnie the Gooch announce teams in unpredictable manners and the typical 
graphical ones you should be familiar with by now.

VB. Nouns
~~~~~~~~~


AB      All-Stars
AC      Bombers
AD      Fishes
AE      Giants
AF      Hornets
AG      Melonheads
AH      Monsters
AI      Rockets
AJ      Socks
AK      Wombats
AL      Bananas*
AM      Cheeses*
AN      Cookies*
AO      Duckies*
AP      Gravies*
BA      Mammoths*
BB      Oysters*
BC      Pansies*
BD      Pickles*
BE      Squids*
BF      Turtles*

Everything else results in a crash when you try to play. Viewing stats will not 
crash the game, but may be unpredictably glitchy. Entries marked with stars 
will crash the program if you choose it as your team (crashes in dugout) or you 
make it a non-playoff team during the regular season and try to view the 
calendar. Starred teams also ignore the adjective in favor of their own built-
in ones and, when generated by the game, will reflect this by having AA as the 
adjective. A true shame, since many of those mascots are really awesome.

VC. Colors
~~~~~~~~~~

AA      Teal*
AB      Red
AC      Blue
AD      Yellow
AE      Green
AF      Purple
AG      Orange
AH      Pink
AI      White
AJ      Black
AK      Cyan*
AL      Light Green*
AM      Brown*

All other combinations produce AA teal. Combinations marked with an asterisk 
are not normally accessible. No combinations seem to crash the game outright.

VI. Player Appendix
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here are all of the players you can use in the game.

VIA. Backyard Kids
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AB      Kimmy Eckman
AC      Maria Luna
AD      Angela Delvecchio
AE      Vicki Kawaguchi
AF      Gretchen Hasselhoff
AG      Sally Dobbs
AH      Billy Jean Blackwood
AI      Ashley Webber
AJ      Sidney Webber
AK      Kiesha Phillips
AL      Stephanie Morgan
AM      Luanne Lui
AN      Annie Frazier
AO      Jocinda Smith
AP      Lisa Crockett
BA      Ronny Dobbs
BB      Achmed Khan
BC      Amir Khan
BD      Kenny Kawaguchi
BE      Pete Wheeler
BF      Dmitri Petrovich
BG      Ricky Johnson
BH      Marky Dubois
BI      Reese Worthington
BJ      Pablo Sanchez
BK      Tony Delvecchio
BL      Jorge Garcia
BM      Dante Robinson
BN      Ernie Steele
BO      Mikey Thomas

VIB. Generic Kids
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BP      Amy Bostwick
CA      Arlene Perez
CB      Betty Houstan
CC      Cindy Chang
CD      Clarice Reid
CE      Colleen Klinker
CF      Debby Nagasawa
CG      Diana Hayes
CH      Esther French
CI      Francis Blewer
CJ      Gail Weinman
CK      Grace Tipton
CL      Hannah Peavy
CM      Heather Quinn
CN      Holly Franklin
CO      Isabelle Marelli
CP      Jane Davis
DA      Joella Minotti
DB      Judy Abwunza
DC      Julie Dunkel
DD      Karen Donato
DE      Katie Shankar
DF      Krissy Mulligan
DG      Lara Nunez
DH      Leah Wayne
DI      Lena Ng
DJ      Linda Potter
DK      Liz Kinghorn
DL      Marianna Rauf
DM      Mary Reilly
DN      Michiko Adachi
DO      Molly May
DP      Nancy Chin
EA      Olga Tollefson
EB      Olive Hussein
EC      Petra Chekov
ED      Ramona Bennett
EE      Randi Uno
EF      Serena Damonte
EG      Sheila Basanti
EH      Sonja Hagen
EI      Stacy Gordon
EJ      Star Moonbeam
EK      Tanya Uchida
EL      Tiffany Bosworth
EM      Tina Herrara
EN      Vanna Steinman
EO      Veronica Lee
EP      Whitney Singh
FA      Zena Fromm
FB      Andres Ibsen
FC      Artie Pimbleton
FD      Bobby Bulgrien
FE      Bret Olson
FF      Carlos Ocampo
FG      Chad Koppel
FH      Chico Papas
FI      Chris Milton
FJ      Chucky Flinder
FK      Davy Marian
FL      Dominique Lowell
FM      Earl Abbot
FN      Eric Lebeaux
FO      Felix Grant
FP      Fernando Diaz
GA      Franky Holly
GB      Fred Benson
GC      Gary Allen
GD      George Coleman
GE      Henri Deschenes
GF      Horace Young
GG      Ibrahim Mohamed
GH      Isaac Drummond
GI      Jack Joseph
GJ      Jay Green
GK      Jim Kylie
GL      Johnny Omar
GM      Jordan Thorner
GN      Mickey O'Connor
GO      Murray Goldman
GP      Nate Powalski
HA      Nicky Winston
HB      Omar Stephano
HC      Paco Kaufman
HD      PJ Shareef
HE      Rafael Hendrix
HF      Ray Tran
HG      Robby Bocko
HH      Ryan Vanderhoek
HI      Shane Smith
HJ      Stan Olafson
HK      Stevie Lynch
HL      Stuart Sullivan
HM      Timmy Unger
HN      Todd Xavier
HO      Vic Soufle
HP      Vladimir Womak
IA      Wally Evans
IB      Wing Kwan
IC      Zenon Estrada

VIC. Special Cases
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AA      “Worker Drone”
* makes strange honking noises when in the field in the place of hey batter 
sneers
* represented on the field as an off-center mugshot of a random generic player
* cannot catch balls at all, if he is targeted they will just fly straight 
through him
* crashes the game in several positions, including as pitcher and at-bats
* probably not too important to investigate, but I'll include it for the hell 
of it
ID      Mr. Clanky

VII. Acknowledgements
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Humongous Entertainment c. 1997 - for making such an incredible game that held 
amazing secrets (and still continues to hold them)


Atari - I'll throw them in since they now own Humongous. Props to them for 
keeping the Backyard line alive. I won't comment on their performance, though, 
since I have barely played any of the new games.

Microsoft - for Notepad. No, seriously. I love the program to death.

GlassGiant.com - for the sweet ASCII art image I generated from the intro 
screen.

me - for cracking the code of the coach files

VIII. Version Info
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1.00 (5/31/10) - First edition of the guide.

IX. Answers Guide
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Q1:

LF      Kiesha Phillips
CF      Pablo Sanchez
RF      Luanne Lui
3B      Achmed Khan
2B      Pete Wheeler
1B      Dmitri Petrovich
SS      Vicki Kawaguchi
C       Annie Frazier
P       Angela Delvecchio

Q2:

Humongous Rockets, color Blue, 1W-2L

Q3:

Luanne Lui
Vicki Kawaguchi
Pablo Sanchez
Kiesha Phillips
Pete Wheeler
Dmitri Petrovich
Angela Delvecchio
Annie Frazier
Achmed Khan