US Feature: Bad Business --- A Tale of Baseball, Video Games, and a Falling Hero (Miller)
Sunday, May 27, 2012 at 8:36
Before the Fall: Curt SchillingIn 2004, Curt Schilling became a legend in Boston. Playing on a badly-injured ankle, he helped the Red Sox achieve one of the greatest comebacks in baseball history to defeat the hated New York Yankees in the semi-finals. The Red Sox then won the "World Series" --- Boston's first title in 86 years --- over the St Louis Cardinals.
And then was more: in 2007, Schilling's pitching took the Sox win to another World Series, finally changing the course of the Sox/Yankees rivalry after decades of cursed frustration for Bostonians.
Imagine the frustration, then, of many Boston fans when their hero badmouthed some of their best-loved politicians and used his fame to campaign for Republican candidates. And then you can appreciate the Schadenfreude at Schilling's failure to launch a successful computer game company.
As Robert Miller points out on The Boston Gamer, however, the reaction to Shilling's recent failure is a lot more than gloating or political squabbling. The collapse of 38 Studios has exposed the hypocrisy of politically-active citizens, the unscrupulous behavior of famous people with more money than brains, and the deeply flawed inner-workings of State Government and its business practices.