Hate the player or hate the game?
RYAN: The oft-traveled, anger-filled baseball player unfortunately known as Milton Bradley is perhaps the second greatest thing to come out of Harbor City, California. Right after Reggie the alligator, who last I checked inspired not a-one, not a-two, but a-TWO books. Still, with Milton’s free agent signing with the Chicago Cubs, he is automatically transformed to lovable, great, and most importantly, the final piece of the puzzle (combined with the trading of the Jason Marquis puzzle piece). This is the Chicago Cubs we’re talking about here. Sure, history suggests this signing will be a disaster on the same scale as the t-shirt-killing sweat machine known as Todd Hundley. There’s the fact he’s never played a full season, let alone anything even remotely close to that. Or that he’s got more anger issues than that kid in middle school who tried to stab someone with his gym shorts. Or how a National League team just signed someone who played DH all of last season. No, cause when it comes to the Cubs, we all know that history doesn’t matter. It’s not like they haven’t won the World Series in 100 years or anything like that. Ahhhhhhhh, fuck.
SHAWN: Go ahead, Cubs, spin the wheel and see what happens with Milton Bradley. I’ll go ahead and spin my own wheel in the game of life…oh, look, now I’m a plumber who makes $100,000/yr. and, yes, I have a boat now. Looks like me, my sexy stick-thin wife and our two quadriplegic children will be living the good life having mai-tais fed to us at Millionaire Acres. Your Milton Bradley will inevitably blow his shot when he breaks a bat over his knee and tries to cut Junction Jack after a pop fly. You want advice from a Milton Bradley who knows his way around a game? Try game pioneer and inventor of the paper cutter, Milton Bradley. MB’s company dominates the American game market, in the same way as winning teams might dominate baseball. With Candyland, Operation, Battleship, Life and 13 Dead End Drive, you can steal your way out of a Molasses Swamp WHILE REMOVING A BREAD BASKET FROM A HUMAN BODY. How’d that bread basket get in there? Good thing you’re here, doctor. If only your Milton Bradley can remove the bread basket hurting the Cubs’ insides for a century. When I need unnecessary surgery, I’ll turn to someone else. Guess who? MB.
Really? Operation Hulk? Really??
RYAN: Let’s not get carried away here. Yes, back in the glory days of board games, MB was once considered the bee’s knees. But now, after some time has passed and we have the benefit of hindsight, it’s painfully obvious that MB has become a lifeless entitiy that’s gone 15 years without an original idea. Leaving Charlie Americans like you and me stuck with bastardized re-re-releases of classic games with shameless marketing tie-ins. A Star Wars Game of Life? Not one, but two versions for the Pirates of the Caribbean? Bratz Twister? Lord of the Rings Stratego? In all honesty, I’m surprised there’s not a Nutty Professor II: The Klumps version of Operation. Or Hungry, Hungry Hippos. Both would work. At least Milton Bradley the baseball player brings some variety to the game of baseball, which is exactly what the Cubs needed. They were too passive, lying down at the first sign of trouble. But now they’ve got a wildcard. Someone that could do anything at any time. Empty a bags of baseballs on the field in protest. Throw water bottles at fans. Tear up his knee arguing with an umpire. Lead the league in OBS. Call a teammate a racist. Anything!
SHAWN: If you find marketing tie-ins shameless, clearly you’ve never played the phenomenal Sailor Moon edition of Life. And have also never been to Wrigley Field. I haven’t seen so much shameless advertising space since you tattooed that Nike swoosh on your ass. But I digress. MB is still at the top of its games, despite you turning your back on the company that made your childhood what it is (you didn’t even know what hunger meant until you saw four hippos fighting for a pancake you threw in the middle of the board—admit it). Clearly you’ve missed out on innovations like Jenga Truth-or-Dare and Heroscape. Sure, those are pretty much just variations, but why mess with a good thing? I guess that’s something the Cubs aren’t ever going to understand. Why not throw some wild cards in there? I mean, it can’t get any worse, right? MB knows how to milk the advantages and stay on top. They even had trouble in the past like the Mr. T game and What Did Grandma Petersen Do to the Cat? (yeah, those are both real), but they’ve stayed strong, avoiding bankruptcy in this economy. What have the Cubs done besides get their field sold?
We were just talking, Coach. Honest.
RYAN: Your “why mess with a good thing” is the exact argument against everything that MB has done in the past 15 years. If all their games are as great as you say they are, why mess with them and make variations based off them in the first place? At least Parker Brothers does it right with all its Monopoly spinoffs. What Star Wars nerd hasn’t wanted to own a glorious triumvirate of Endor, Bespin, and Hoth? But really, everyone knows the only reason MB has avoided bankruptcy is because in the 1980s it sold out. Literally. It sold itself. So yeah, it’s pretty easy to stay out of financial trouble when all you have to do is suckle off the massive financial tit of Hasbro. Some people don’t have it so easy. Some people, like, oh, I don’t know, star outfielder for the Chicago Cubs, Milton Bradley, have to go out there and earn their keep. While all the suits at MB are sitting in their plush corner offices brainstorming how to make a High School Musical version of Candyland, Milton Bradley is busting his butt almost every day for almost 8 months out of the year, hitting a little white ball with a big wooden stick, and on occassion, catching and throwing it. You tell me who deserves a 30 million dollar contract.
SHAWN: Yeah, Milton Bradley sure has earned his keeps in the world of baseball. I mean, not everyone can get signed by the Padres without passing a physical exam. Not everyone can do about fourteen minutes of work every few days (swing that bat) for three months and get paid millions. Not everyone can try to assault a newscaster after a game and watch the world turn the other cheek. No, sir. Some people just fly by on their innovation, brilliance, and work. Some people just half-heartedly open, say, the first color lithography shop in Massachutses before working their ass off to invent a game that, despite your criticisms of its constant variations, has a Spongebob Squarepants version of it nearly 150 years after its advent. Last I checked there wasn’t a Spongebob version of the Civil War. What I’m trying to say here is MB’s games and the company that followed are more important with greater impact than the Civil War and, therefore, far better than some baseball player nobody’s going to remember in a century and a half. By then, the Cubs will be fully grown Bears and, like Bears, growl their way to…more defeat. MB will never be a designated game distributor; he’s the real thing.
Next on Danger Queue: 2008 A.D. vs. 8 A.D.—A Year In Review
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