<P> The game has a 10 - run mercy rule . Thus, if at the end of any inning, one team is up by a total of 10 runs, the game is called in favor of the leading team . In addition to the 10 - run mercy rule, there is also a 100 - run mercy rule . If at any point in the game one team attains a lead of 100 or more, play is immediately stopped and a winner is declared, even though the inning is not over . For example, if the visiting team scores 100 runs in the top of the first inning, the visiting team will be declared the winner and the home team will not even have the chance to bat . If the game remains tied after 18 innings, the game is over and no winner is declared; all hits and other stats are not saved - as if the game never happened . </P> <P> As stated above, when money is won, it can be applied to upgrade a player . For batters, there are six abilities that can be augmented . For pitchers, there are eleven . Each ability can be assigned up to 15 points . Each player has a maximum number of points allowed and the higher the "max" of the player, the more valuable he could become . </P> <P> Baseball Stars was a critical success, often referred to as the best baseball game on the NES platform, and as such, has become a franchise series for SNK, spawning five sequels, and its "create player" and "create team" functions have become standard features in sports games . IGN placed it at #28 in the article "Top 100 NES Games". Baseball Stars placed #3 on Yahoo!'s "Top 5 Best Old School Sports Video Games". Baseball stars were once voted most popular baseball game according to a poll taken by Nintendo Power magazine . David Littman, a producer on EA's NHL series of games, stated that the popular GM mode in those games was originally inspired by Baseball Stars . It received a perfect 5 - star rating in the book Ultimate Nintendo: Guide to the NES Library 1985--1995 . </P> <P> In 1991, a sequel, Baseball Stars 2, was released by Romstar, but it was far less popular than the original . Reasons for this included the inability to change the name of a gamer - created team or names of the players on a gamer - created team, and unimproved graphics over the original . Two more sequels were made for SNK's console, the Neo-Geo: </P>

What is ap used for in baseball stars