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Why the return of Backyard Baseball means so much to ball fans of a certain age

The image is iconic.

A smiling, chubby, cartoon child in a banana-yellow backward hat. Two jet-black eyes just below the hat’s blue brim dot the center of his head the size of a prize-winning pumpkin. On that massive melon, which is responsible for more than half the kid’s body, lies an elongated grin shaped like a boomerang. An ill-fitting white T-shirt with red trim, revealing a paunch and a belly button, completes the ensemble.

This is Pablo Sanchez, the most legendary, mythical video game character that never was.

And he’s back, with all his friends.

Backyard Baseball, the iconic point-and-click video game from the early 2000s, is set to be refurbished and released by a company named Playground Productions “in the coming months.