Friday Starter is a weekly column of news and tidbits from the world of baseball video games—past and present, domestic and foreign.
(To the tune of “We’re an American Band”) Buyin’ American merch
Previously this blog dug through auction sites looking for Japanese baseball video game merch. This week, it’s time to bring it home for some American merch. The slideshow below shows the variety currently on offer on eBay for retro baseball games.
Nintendo rules the roost this week, with lots and lots of merch for various Griffey games on eBay. This pennant is for the original Ken Griffey Jr. for SNES. 
Its SNES sequel, Ken Griffey Jr.’s Winning Run, got a pennant as well. 
Some extreme ’90s power radiates off of this T-shirt, a collaboration between Nintendo and Pacific Northwest grocery store chain Fred Meyer. The style is so strong that you’ll have to pay something like $200 to get one. 
Fred Meyer gave us another T-shirt design as well, though it maybe hasn’t aged quite as well. 
This promotional baseball from the first Griffey game for SNES is going for $399.99 currently. 
Whereas you can get a baseball for the first N64 Griffey game (in much worse condition) for only $100. 
Now solidly after Nintendo’s “Play it loud” era, this Griffey N64 shirt is relatively tame with a subtle, small logo. 
This promotional slide shows a screenshot of the Griffey game for SNES when you hold it in the light. Pretty cool item. 
This hat for the second Griffey game for N64 has seen better days. 
Merch for other series was a bit hard to find. This simple logo T-shirt for EA’s Triple Play 2001 is one of the rare examples for other series. 
Unfortunately someone might have worn this MVP Baseball 2003 sweatshirt while painting around the house. 
Backyard Baseball gets tons of merch these days under Playground Productions, but not much has survived since the Humongous Entertainment days. These baseball cards combining pros and Backyard Baseball characters are good, though. 
And here’s an intact pack of the same Backyard Baseball 2001 cards.
Backyard Baseball ported to Switch and PS5
The Backyard Baseball revival revives again, this time on the PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch (and compatible with Switch 2). This is another port of what’s been titled Backyard Baseball ’97, a rerelease of the original game. No new features (besides controller support), just a straightforward port. The game previously released for PC, PS5, iOS, and Android.
I have yet to play either version, but distressingly the video and audio in their official Switch release trailer looks and sounds surprisingly crunchy. The pixels aren’t aligned with the video resolution well, and the audio sounds tinny and compressed. The PS5 trailer doesn’t have the same issue. Could that really be indicative of the product? I hope not, but will have to try it and find out.
Still no news on Backyard Baseball ’01, a port of 2001 which should hopefully include pro players, or the original Backyard Sports game which was announced as part of this brand revival under Playground Productions.
Say goodbye to the console version of Eikan Nine Crossroad
Eikan Nine Crossroad, the disappointing free-to-play high school baseball game by Konami, will shut down servers for the PS4 and Switch versions of the game on November 12 2025. Sale of premium currency was already halted on June 6 2025.
The mobile version lives on, and is still doing promotional events like their recent event with former NPB pro Kazuhiro Kiyohara. He’s a beloved bear-like figure who also once happened to throw his bat at a pitcher then hit him with a flying hip check:
Eikan Nine Crossroad seemed like a promising title, building off of the popular board game/franchise sim high school mode in the Pawapuro series. But the free-to-play model was punishing, condemning you to labor in obscurity failing to slowly improve your team year over year, or asking you to buy a few power gems and pay to win.
Song of the Week
Been listening to a lot of the Great Sluggers ’94 arcade soundtrack by Namco this week. Shockingly, this early ’90s title actually licensed one fan song per NPB team, so there are energetic, lively chiptune versions of songs like “Little Neptune” (Orix Blue Wave) and “Tokyo Ondo” (Yakult Swallows).
But if I have to pick one tune to highlight, the “Season Off” tune goes crazy: