So many people were acquainted with the series beginning with the hand-drawn SCUMM engine games, and I think the extra nostalgia kick is what makes them win so many popularity contests. It's significantly less popular due to the fact that it was the only game in the series of its kind, I think. Because the games play almost nothing alike, it could be called an in-name only sequel. I bring all this up because it's the game's greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The overall presentation of the game confirms this - obviously, it's the first one to be 3D across every platform (not the first 3D game, period - that honor goes to Football on the GameCube), but it also debuted new theme songs for every character, individual theme songs for every extra character (so, yes, that means every pro gets their own theme song, AND all the extra fictional unlockables have their own too.AND the custom players have their own set of themes!), every single field is new bar Steele Stadium, the batting and pitching buttons now are named differently and 'intentional walk' is no longer an option (probably due to redundancy, since it's just as easy to pick 'slow ball' and throw it out of the strike zone), the batting power-ups are totally different, the game's pace is much faster, and there's a lot of new things here and there like leading off.

In many ways you can tell they really wanted to breathe new life into the Backyard games starting with it. Baseball '05 was a really big overhaul to the series.

Backyard baseball 2003 playoff