Bases Loaded featured a unique television-style depiction of the pitcher-batter matchup, as well as strong play control and a relatively high degree of realism, which made it one of the most popular baseball games of the early NES era. One unique feature of the game is that the pitcher can provoke a batter to charge the mound. Each team has only one batter who can be provoked in this manner, however (usually the team's best hitter); it is up to the player to discover who it is. At the time Bases Loaded was released, few video games were licensed by major league sports. Therefore, the league depicted in Bases Loaded is a fictitious league of 12 teams.
