What the Backyard Games brought to the table, though, was an innocence that allowed for the games to be fairly subversive for their time. Backyard Baseball put boys and girls on an even playing field—well, some of the fields were in a little better shape than others—with power hitters like Jocinda Smith and Keisha Phillips and speedsters such as Vicki Kawaguchi proving to be just as adept at the sport as their male counterparts. Girls were actually better at pitching in the 1997 edition of this game than boys were; of the six players in that game with the highest possible pitching rating (four baseballs), five were female. In this universe, as should be in ours, girls were equal to boys in all respects. It was a small thing, and it wasn’t. A game that gave female players a sense that they belonged was revolutionary, albeit in a low-key way. Sadly, it still is.