How a Teacher Revived Backyard Baseball

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.How a Second-Grade Teacher Revived a Beloved Video GameBackyard Baseball, a favorite game for 1990s kids, had been off the market for years. But Lindsay Barnett was determined.“I had blind confidence,” Lindsay Barnett said, describing her mind-set at the start of her quest.Credit...Akilah Townsend for The New York TimesHow a Second-Grade Teacher Revived a Beloved Video GameBackyard Baseball, a favorite game for 1990s kids, had been off the market for years. But Lindsay Barnett was determined.“I had blind confidence,” Lindsay Barnett said, describing her mind-set at the start of her quest.Credit...Akilah Townsend for The New York TimesListen · 14:50 min By Alessandra SchadeReporting from Highland Park, Ill.July 13, 2026On a cloudless summer day, Lindsay Barnett was giving me a tour of Highland Park, a suburb just outside Chicago.“This was our football field,” she said, pointing to a stretch of grass. “That rock was the end zone.”Standing about five feet tall, and carrying a Celsius energy drink in one hand, Barnett wore black high-top sneakers and skinny jeans. The neighborhood, with its white picket fences and neat landscaping, is one of the North Shore suburbs that served as the backdrop for “Sixteen Candles” and other 1980s coming-of-age classics directed by John Hughes. The glass garage from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” where Ferris’s friend Cameron Frye kicks his father’s prize Ferrari into a ravine, was just down the street.Barnett, 33, grew up here in the 1990s, at the height of the Chicago Bulls dynasty. Michael Jordan lived five miles away. “I went to summer camp with his children,” she said. “It was the coolest time to be a kid.”As we walked along, a car slowed down beside us. “Lindsay!” said the driver, Dana Gordon, a longtime resident of the neighborhood. “Are you moving back home?”Barnett explained that she was just showing a reporter around.“This girl’s a genius,” Gordon said, now addressing me. “

A passionate Chicago public-school teacher — and now she’s bringing back my kids’ favorite video game.”Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT