[1] With the new Major League Baseball license, the player has the ability to choose a major league team to play in pick up play and season mode, in addition to six of the original custom teams.

Season Play has been revamped from the original game: the player can now choose the pick-up-play fields to play at home and regular season and postseason has been modified to resemble the real-life MLB, including the National and the American League's three divisions and renaming the postseason's rounds to resemble the Major League Baseball postseason, including the Backyard World Series.

[5] To promote the game, Humongous Entertainment hired baseball player Cal Ripken, Jr. as a spokesperson.

[6] Each MLB team is represented by one professional baseball player, with the exception of the Cincinnati Reds, which is represented by both Barry Larkin and Ken Griffey Jr. due to the latter's transition from the Seattle Mariners to the Cincinnati Reds late in the development of Backyard Baseball 2001.

[12] As with Backyard Baseball '97, it will be developed by Mega Cat Studios and published by Playground Productions.