[4][5] The series was conceived as an answer to Mattel Electronics's aggressive marketing campaign fronted by George Plimpton, in which they compared the graphically and gameplay-wise dated Atari 2600 sports games, including Atari's 1978 baseball game Home Run, to their more advanced Intellivision counterparts.

[7][8] In this version the pitching, the batting, and the fielding utilized the regular joystick, and the voice commands could be only used to throw the ball to the bases.

[9] The originally-released RealSports Baseball included a number of software bugs that impaired the quality of play.

As a result, an improved version for the 2600 platform entitled Super Baseball was subsequently released in March 1989, fixing some, but not all, of the errors.

After that Keithen Hayenga was assigned to finish the game, but because he wasn't satisfied with the graphics, he chose to start over the project from scratch.

[7] The game's 1982 television advertising campaign was fronted by Oakland Athletics manager Billy Martin.

[13] In this game Atari improved on Home Run, their previous baseball-themed game for the 2600 platform, by including a baseball diamond, fly-balls, throwing of the ball by fielders to tag the opposing player out, and other traditional features of the sport of baseball.

[10] Players are able to use the joystick to select the kind of swing the batter will make, with bunts, grounders, and fly-balls all possible.

[24] In the 2007 book Classic Home Video Games, 1972–1984: A Complete Reference Guide, Brett Weiss reviewed the original RealSports Baseball negatively, criticizing the bugs.

Weiss reviewed the subsequently-released Super Baseball version more positively as some of the bugs had been fixed.