[2] Pro Baseball: Family Stadium was created by Namco programmer Yoshihiro Kishimoto, who had previously worked on games such as Baraduke (1985).

[4] Atari programmer Peter Lipson adapted Family Stadium into the American localized version R.B.I.

The series was meant to contrast the Sony-published and formerly PlayStation-exclusive MLB The Show, which is considered more simulationist in its focus.

Instead, the game contained 8 teams listed by only their location: Boston, California, Detroit, Houston, Minnesota, New York, St. Louis, and San Francisco; their real-life, MLB counterparts were the first place teams in each division in 1986 (Boston, California, Houston, New York) and 1987 (Detroit, Minnesota, St. Louis, San Francisco) MLB seasons.

The game also boasted two All-Star teams, American League and National League; the two featured established veterans such as George Brett, Mike Schmidt, Dale Murphy and Andre Dawson—none of whom appeared on the other eight teams—and up-and-coming players like Mark McGwire, Andrés Galarraga, Kevin Seitzer and José Canseco.

Each player has different capabilities in the game; hitters vary in ability to make solid contact, to hit the ball with power, and their base running speed.

Vince Coleman is the fastest player in the game; it is very difficult to catch him stealing second base.

Pitchers vary in pitching speed, and the amount by which the player can steer the ball left and right during its flight.

Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens are two pitchers in the game with the fastest pitches.

A rudimentary box score is displayed during and after the game showing composite statistics for each team.

Baseball implements the mercy rule—if one team is ahead by ten or more runs after any number of completed innings, the game ends immediately.

Also, all real-life switch hitters, such as Tim Raines, were depicted exclusively as left-handed batters.

A notable exception was that of McGwire, who was included on the Oakland team, and was statistically represented by his potential numbers.

Baseball series, all of the (then) 26 (later 28) Major League Baseball teams were featured; however, these later games also did not have a full MLB license, so the teams were only identified by their cities (though they still had real player names as they had the MLBPA license).