My son Jess received a San Francisco Giants edition of Monopoly for his birthday recently, and last Sunday Barbara, Jess, and I sat down to try it out. I was surprised to see that some of the game materials were kind of chintzy. The tokens (ball and glove, little player, etc.) were nice, but the "luxury boxes" and "ballparks" were just the usual plastic houses and hotels, albeit in Giants black and orange, and the money was very plain and flimsy. The properties were all Giants-oriented (players, SBC Park, McCovey Cove, and so on). The random cards were Jackets and Jerseys, and were also Giants-themed (for example, "Lose doubleheader. Go back 3 spaces.").
The game itself was a 2.5 hour classic. I collected a couple of monopolies, built them up, and the others landed on them. Then I got the "Jacket" card for building improvements, which cost me more than $1000. In keeping with an unofficial but popular rule, I paid the money into Free Parking. Barbara was almost wiped out when she got a reprieve by landing on Free Parking. But her penchant for ending up on my J. T. Snow property (with hotel, $1150) soon knocked her out.
Exactly the same thing happened with Jess. When he was almost tapped out, I got the other building improvements card, which caused me to drop $1300 in Free Parking. Of course, Jess got the money. But he loved visiting my hotels too, which by then were practically unavoidable, and before long, I won the game.
