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The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL
The NFL championship game that changed football a New York Times–bestselling sports history classic by the author of Black Hawk Down. Yankee Stadium, December 28, 1958. What was about to go down on this Sunday evening in front of sixty-four thousand fans and forty-five million home viewers—the largest viewership ever assembled for a live televised event—was the first sudden death overtime in NFL history. This one battle between the league’s best offense, the Baltimore Colts, and the best defense, the New York Giants, would propel professional football from a moderately popular pastime into America’s favorite sport. On the field and roaming the sidelines were seventeen future Hall of Famers, including Colts stars Johnny Unitas, Raymond Berry, and Gino Marchetti; and Giants greats Frank Gifford, Sam Huff; and assistant coaches Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry. But they were opposing teams in more ways than one. It was a contest between Baltimore blue-collars, many of whom worked off-season taking shifts at Bethlehem Steel, and the trendy, New York glamour boys of splashy magazine ads and TV commercials who mingled with politicians, Broadway stars, and even Ernest Hemingway. Mark Bowden “dives into the trenches of the 1958 NFL Championship game” for a riveting play-by-play account, the stories behind the key players, the effect it had on the league, the sport, and the country (Entertainment Weekly). “Bring[s] the contest so alive that you find yourself almost wondering . . . years later, how it will turn out in the end.” —The New York Times “The Best Game Ever is sure to become an instant Sacred Text.” —Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
340 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 1, 2007
63 people are currently reading
709 people want to read
About the author
Mark Bowden
65 books1,798 followersMark Bowden is an American journalist and writer. He is a former national correspondent and longtime contributor to The Atlantic. Bowden is best known for his book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (1999) about the 1993 U.S. military raid in Mogadishu, which was later adapted into a motion picture of the same name that received two Academy Awards.
Bowden is also known for the books Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw (2001), about the efforts to take down Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, and Hue 1968, an account of the Battle of Huế.
Bowden is also known for the books Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw (2001), about the efforts to take down Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, and Hue 1968, an account of the Battle of Huế.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 108 reviews
February 9, 2025
The best thing, to my mind, about this recounting of the historic 1958 NFL championship game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants is the sheer quality of the writing. The game, the first overtime championship game in the history of the National Football League, was so full of suspenseful twists and turns that it is still known as “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” and therefore it is no surprise that a number of writers have turned their attention to it. But Mark Bowden is such a skilled writer, achieving such heights of prose poetry through the sheer craftsmanship of his language, that this particular retelling of the historic game truly stands out.
In The Best Game Ever, Mark Bowden very effectively sets the 1958 NFL championship game in the context of its time. It helped, to be sure, that the Colts and Giants played tenaciously in a tough game characterized by many dramatic changes in momentum. But as Bowden makes clear, there were historical and cultural factors converging to create a social milieu in which professional football could become the wildly popular phenomenon it became. Bowden suggests, persuasively, that the post-World War II affluence of the suburbanizing 1950’s
…would prompt sweeping social change….One part of this new America would be an explosion in the attraction of spectator sports. Games had long been popular, but they were about to start generating wealth beyond even the most ambitious imagination, particularly in football. There was a unique confluence of trends. A vast market was forming for pro games just as the technology was being perfected to package and deliver them to every home. (p. 50).
It is against that background of technological advancement that Bowden’s saga of Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL (the book’s subtitle) unfolds. Along with those advancements in technology, the game was changing, becoming a faster-moving and more cerebral game. Responding to those tactical changes in the game, and indeed speeding them along, were innovative thinkers like Giants defensive coach Tom Landry, who believed that a strong response to a faster, more short-pass-oriented game would be reducing the number of linebackers from the then-current four to three – a set-up in which everything depended on “the man in the center, the middle linebacker. He would have to be a kind of superathlete, a man as big as a lineman, quick enough and fast enough to play pass defense, and smart enough to recognize which role to play with every snap of the ball” (p. 100).
Fortunately for Landry, he had in mind the perfect candidate for this superathlete position – Sam Huff, a Giants defender who so perfectly personified the rough-and-tumble qualities of 1950’s pro football that he had been the subject of a CBS television special, “The Violent World of Sam Huff.” After some initial hesitation regarding Landry’s suggestion of a change in roles, “Huff stepped into the role in practice, and it was a revelation. He felt like he had found the position he was born to play….Now he was standing upright at the center of the line, and he was amazed at how much more he could suddenly see. It was as though he had played the game his whole life with blinders on, and now they were gone. With his peripheral vision, he could see the whole field, from sideline to sideline” (pp. 101-02). The Best Game Ever captures well the excitement and drama of these changes; the game is getting faster and more interesting, just in time for the new technology to beam it out to a nation that will fall in love with it.
I also appreciated Bowden’s willingness to demythologize this mythic game, as when he writes that the early stages of the 1958 NFL championship “looked more like amateur hour than the NFL championship. Three of the first four drives had ended with turnovers” (p. 151).
As the game went on, however, both teams settled into their routines of doing what they did best – the Colts on offense, and the Giants on defense. And one player in particular – the Baltimore Colts’ quarterback, a skinny and awkward-looking Pennsylvania native with number 19 on his jersey – took command of the game. Johnny Unitas, mixing a few runs up the middle with a great many passes to his amazingly reliable wide receiver Raymond Berry, had taken the Giants off their game; and “When an offense was clicking the way the Colts were, even the most disciplined defense begins to crumble” (p. 200).
Sam Huff knew only too well what Unitas had done on that decisive drive; almost half a century later, he told an interviewer, “John had me psyched, you know? I thought he could read my mind after a while because it seemed like the son of a bitch knew every defense I was in. You know, it was frustrating to play against him, he was just a mastermind at it” (p. 202). As Bowden chronicles it, the Colts’ game-winning play that ended that drive and the championship game – running back Alan Ameche plowing through an improbably large hole in the Giants’ defense and crashing across the goal line – was an almost mathematically certain outcome of Unitas’ mastery of the game.
Bowden, a prolific and best-selling author, is probably best-known for torn-from-today’s-headlines books like Black Hawk Down; his suspenseful 1999 chronicling of the travails of a group of U.S. soldiers caught behind enemy lines in Somalia was adapted for the big screen by director Ridley Scott in 2001. Why then did Bowden turn to the subject of a football game that took place when Bowden himself was just seven years old?
Bowden states that “I had grown up for the latter part of my childhood in Baltimore, and remembered the great Colts teams and players” (p. 261). And he sounds like a true Baltimorean when he praises “the special relationship between the city and the team”, and laments then-team owner “Robert Irsay’s unforgivable decision to ship the franchise [from Baltimore] to Indianapolis” (p. 264) in 1984. “Unforgivable” may seem like a strong word; but you will hear people around Greater Baltimore using that word, and stronger words, when the subject of the Baltimore Colts’ relocation to Indianapolis comes up.
Well-illustrated with photographs from that long-ago time – now more than sixty years on – Bowden’s The Best Game Ever provides football fans with a direct connection to that distant and storied time when professional football was, for many Americans, something new and exciting.
In The Best Game Ever, Mark Bowden very effectively sets the 1958 NFL championship game in the context of its time. It helped, to be sure, that the Colts and Giants played tenaciously in a tough game characterized by many dramatic changes in momentum. But as Bowden makes clear, there were historical and cultural factors converging to create a social milieu in which professional football could become the wildly popular phenomenon it became. Bowden suggests, persuasively, that the post-World War II affluence of the suburbanizing 1950’s
…would prompt sweeping social change….One part of this new America would be an explosion in the attraction of spectator sports. Games had long been popular, but they were about to start generating wealth beyond even the most ambitious imagination, particularly in football. There was a unique confluence of trends. A vast market was forming for pro games just as the technology was being perfected to package and deliver them to every home. (p. 50).
It is against that background of technological advancement that Bowden’s saga of Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL (the book’s subtitle) unfolds. Along with those advancements in technology, the game was changing, becoming a faster-moving and more cerebral game. Responding to those tactical changes in the game, and indeed speeding them along, were innovative thinkers like Giants defensive coach Tom Landry, who believed that a strong response to a faster, more short-pass-oriented game would be reducing the number of linebackers from the then-current four to three – a set-up in which everything depended on “the man in the center, the middle linebacker. He would have to be a kind of superathlete, a man as big as a lineman, quick enough and fast enough to play pass defense, and smart enough to recognize which role to play with every snap of the ball” (p. 100).
Fortunately for Landry, he had in mind the perfect candidate for this superathlete position – Sam Huff, a Giants defender who so perfectly personified the rough-and-tumble qualities of 1950’s pro football that he had been the subject of a CBS television special, “The Violent World of Sam Huff.” After some initial hesitation regarding Landry’s suggestion of a change in roles, “Huff stepped into the role in practice, and it was a revelation. He felt like he had found the position he was born to play….Now he was standing upright at the center of the line, and he was amazed at how much more he could suddenly see. It was as though he had played the game his whole life with blinders on, and now they were gone. With his peripheral vision, he could see the whole field, from sideline to sideline” (pp. 101-02). The Best Game Ever captures well the excitement and drama of these changes; the game is getting faster and more interesting, just in time for the new technology to beam it out to a nation that will fall in love with it.
I also appreciated Bowden’s willingness to demythologize this mythic game, as when he writes that the early stages of the 1958 NFL championship “looked more like amateur hour than the NFL championship. Three of the first four drives had ended with turnovers” (p. 151).
As the game went on, however, both teams settled into their routines of doing what they did best – the Colts on offense, and the Giants on defense. And one player in particular – the Baltimore Colts’ quarterback, a skinny and awkward-looking Pennsylvania native with number 19 on his jersey – took command of the game. Johnny Unitas, mixing a few runs up the middle with a great many passes to his amazingly reliable wide receiver Raymond Berry, had taken the Giants off their game; and “When an offense was clicking the way the Colts were, even the most disciplined defense begins to crumble” (p. 200).
Sam Huff knew only too well what Unitas had done on that decisive drive; almost half a century later, he told an interviewer, “John had me psyched, you know? I thought he could read my mind after a while because it seemed like the son of a bitch knew every defense I was in. You know, it was frustrating to play against him, he was just a mastermind at it” (p. 202). As Bowden chronicles it, the Colts’ game-winning play that ended that drive and the championship game – running back Alan Ameche plowing through an improbably large hole in the Giants’ defense and crashing across the goal line – was an almost mathematically certain outcome of Unitas’ mastery of the game.
Bowden, a prolific and best-selling author, is probably best-known for torn-from-today’s-headlines books like Black Hawk Down; his suspenseful 1999 chronicling of the travails of a group of U.S. soldiers caught behind enemy lines in Somalia was adapted for the big screen by director Ridley Scott in 2001. Why then did Bowden turn to the subject of a football game that took place when Bowden himself was just seven years old?
Bowden states that “I had grown up for the latter part of my childhood in Baltimore, and remembered the great Colts teams and players” (p. 261). And he sounds like a true Baltimorean when he praises “the special relationship between the city and the team”, and laments then-team owner “Robert Irsay’s unforgivable decision to ship the franchise [from Baltimore] to Indianapolis” (p. 264) in 1984. “Unforgivable” may seem like a strong word; but you will hear people around Greater Baltimore using that word, and stronger words, when the subject of the Baltimore Colts’ relocation to Indianapolis comes up.
Well-illustrated with photographs from that long-ago time – now more than sixty years on – Bowden’s The Best Game Ever provides football fans with a direct connection to that distant and storied time when professional football was, for many Americans, something new and exciting.
September 29, 2024
After being hit with two days of rain, when I stepped outside, the air smelled like fall. I will be the first person to tell anyone that summer is my favorite season and that the other three I manage to tolerate. With this crisp morning air, I knew I had to stop denying that summer had indeed come to a close. Until I take my annual winter break excursion to sunny Florida, it will be awhile until I can enjoy the weather that I love to soak up. As the actual seasons change, so do their sports counterparts. The baseball regular season ends today, pushing football to the forefront of the sports world once again. With these changes, publishing houses are not as apt to publish as many baseball books at this time of year. Rather than going into sports reading hibernation for the winter, my selections change along with the season. Last week I read Why We Love Football. It is true that I might not love football the way I love baseball, but it is still a sport that I savor on fall afternoons. My knowledge of football history as compared to baseball is lacking, so I decided that during this season I would start to fill in the gaps, commencing with books that Joe Posnanski referenced in Why We Love Football. I decided that the best place to start would be with The Best Game Ever. The game might not hold up to history but it remains as the first televised big game that married football with Americans, leading the NFL to where it is today. Although not a fan of the present day iterations of these teams, I used the big game in 1958 s a jumping off point.
We all have a favorite “best game ever” in all sports. It is no secret what my favorite best baseball game ever is. My best football game ever is a game that was once 28-3 and ended 34-28, the first Super Bowl to be decided in overtime. It took fifty one tries for a Super Bowl to reach overtime and the all time greatest quarterback to do so. I wear my allegiances on my sleeve and made it clear that I disagree with Joe Posnanski on this issue. That stated, in 1958, footbañl still played second fiddle to baseball. The Dodgers and Giants had just moved west, ending an era of New York as the capitol of baseball. With the league now spanning both coasts, America’s pastime now reached more people than ever before. The World Series had been broadcasted on television for nearly a decade, and it became commonplace for the majority of men and boys to watch the game of the week even if they could not attend s game in person. Although the pace of a football game was made to be broadcast on television, in the 1950s, the NFL was predominantly voiced over radio waves. Each team had a radio man, but their vivid descriptions could not keep up withthe fast paced game that would soon overtake baseball as Americans’ sport of choice. In postwar society with Americans on the move more so than ever, the average person needed a game that fitted this new society. Football would become this game and it would take its dependence on television to do so.
The 1958 NFL Championship Game featured 17 future hall of famers. With rosters a fraction of the size of today’s that is almost unfathomable. As with all other championship games to this point, the two division winners met at the stadium of the team holding the better record. Most football teams shared or rented a stadium from their baseball counterparts because the era of having separate venues for sports had not yet occurred. In 1958, the Baltimore Colts won the western division going away. They were an expansion team coached by Weeb Eubank who is better known for leading the Jets in Super Bowl III, by the then at a neutral site. In the East, the Cleveland Browns and New York Giants battled until the game’s final week, the Giants prevailing. Because the Giants had bear the Colts head to head, they would host the next week’s championship game at that hallowed cathedral of sports, Yankee Stadium. With this game taking place on sports sacred ground on a holiday weekend and broadcast on television for the first time, it was just the game that the NFL needed to bring football to the forefront of society. As Americans returned to their tv sets after days of holiday shopping and festivity, they could not help but watch this game on NBC, as day turned to night and Yankee Stadium became just as majestic as it always. Casual fans recognized Yankee Stadium, but this time it hosted an entirely different sport. Americans nursed to fast paced television programs and occasional sports broadcasts were ready to tune in with their friends and family. It would be a game to remember.
Football commissioner Bert Bell could not have thought up this game any better than how it would play out in real time. The Colts had a superior offense featuring Johnny Unitas. Today his name is revered as the first big time quarterback, the first game manager who thrived in the pressure situation of championship level games. His alter ego on the field was receiver Raymond Berry who practically lived in the film room before it was common to do so. Running back Alan Ameche rounded out a balanced offense. The Colts defense was no slouch but not on the level of the Giants defense lead by middle linebacker Sam Huff. The Giants were of the superior coaching of Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry although no one knew at the time who they would become. Each of these gifted football minds attempted to out think and am urged the others, and it was apparent the two most astute minds of them all, at least according to the author, belonged to Berry and Landry. Both loved studying film to find a nuance, a break that would favor his team on one play. Berry watched his session with Unitas so that the two would be in tandem, and Landry watched his with Huff. The team that would prevail would be the one that found something on film that they could exploit in the game. Even I knew that it would be the Colts because this is the game that put Unitas on the map as the premier quarterback that all boys wanted to emulate. He became Johnny U and along with the the media introduced the idea that the quarterback was an All American hero. The players would get stronger and faster, but Johnny U was the first star who utilized television on the game’s biggest stage to catapult football ahead of baseball into sports fans’ hierarchy of fandom.
The author Bowden interviewed many surviving players and coaches fifty years after the game that the Colts won 23-17 in sudden death overtime. It was the first usage of overtime in a championship game and it would not be until Super Bowl LI that the game needed extra time to decide a winner. That game also featured a master quarterback who would lead his team on a final epic drive. By the time of Super Bowl LI, the league and game had become a spectacle. Every playoff team for the most part was gifted with the best players. Today, kids would rather play football or basketball than baseball, with America’s original pastime seeing it’s fan base dwindle. This was not always the case. In the late 1950s as America moved from its most wholesome era toward the turbulent 1960s, change abounded. That change saw football overtake baseball as America’s most watched sport, and it has never looked back. While I will always place baseball before football in my place of fandom, this is not the case for millions of Americans who took advantage of the marriage of football and television , which changed football into the multibillion dollar industry that it is today. The path toward today’s game began back in 1958 with that first televised championship game between the Colts and Giants. Whereas today the baseball and football seasons intersect, that game sixty six years ago vaulted football ahead. Most fans today would tell you that on the final day of baseball’s compelling season that football is their sport of choice, all thanks to the launching of the mystique of Johnny Unitas on a compelling game played out on national television.
3.75 stars
We all have a favorite “best game ever” in all sports. It is no secret what my favorite best baseball game ever is. My best football game ever is a game that was once 28-3 and ended 34-28, the first Super Bowl to be decided in overtime. It took fifty one tries for a Super Bowl to reach overtime and the all time greatest quarterback to do so. I wear my allegiances on my sleeve and made it clear that I disagree with Joe Posnanski on this issue. That stated, in 1958, footbañl still played second fiddle to baseball. The Dodgers and Giants had just moved west, ending an era of New York as the capitol of baseball. With the league now spanning both coasts, America’s pastime now reached more people than ever before. The World Series had been broadcasted on television for nearly a decade, and it became commonplace for the majority of men and boys to watch the game of the week even if they could not attend s game in person. Although the pace of a football game was made to be broadcast on television, in the 1950s, the NFL was predominantly voiced over radio waves. Each team had a radio man, but their vivid descriptions could not keep up withthe fast paced game that would soon overtake baseball as Americans’ sport of choice. In postwar society with Americans on the move more so than ever, the average person needed a game that fitted this new society. Football would become this game and it would take its dependence on television to do so.
The 1958 NFL Championship Game featured 17 future hall of famers. With rosters a fraction of the size of today’s that is almost unfathomable. As with all other championship games to this point, the two division winners met at the stadium of the team holding the better record. Most football teams shared or rented a stadium from their baseball counterparts because the era of having separate venues for sports had not yet occurred. In 1958, the Baltimore Colts won the western division going away. They were an expansion team coached by Weeb Eubank who is better known for leading the Jets in Super Bowl III, by the then at a neutral site. In the East, the Cleveland Browns and New York Giants battled until the game’s final week, the Giants prevailing. Because the Giants had bear the Colts head to head, they would host the next week’s championship game at that hallowed cathedral of sports, Yankee Stadium. With this game taking place on sports sacred ground on a holiday weekend and broadcast on television for the first time, it was just the game that the NFL needed to bring football to the forefront of society. As Americans returned to their tv sets after days of holiday shopping and festivity, they could not help but watch this game on NBC, as day turned to night and Yankee Stadium became just as majestic as it always. Casual fans recognized Yankee Stadium, but this time it hosted an entirely different sport. Americans nursed to fast paced television programs and occasional sports broadcasts were ready to tune in with their friends and family. It would be a game to remember.
Football commissioner Bert Bell could not have thought up this game any better than how it would play out in real time. The Colts had a superior offense featuring Johnny Unitas. Today his name is revered as the first big time quarterback, the first game manager who thrived in the pressure situation of championship level games. His alter ego on the field was receiver Raymond Berry who practically lived in the film room before it was common to do so. Running back Alan Ameche rounded out a balanced offense. The Colts defense was no slouch but not on the level of the Giants defense lead by middle linebacker Sam Huff. The Giants were of the superior coaching of Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry although no one knew at the time who they would become. Each of these gifted football minds attempted to out think and am urged the others, and it was apparent the two most astute minds of them all, at least according to the author, belonged to Berry and Landry. Both loved studying film to find a nuance, a break that would favor his team on one play. Berry watched his session with Unitas so that the two would be in tandem, and Landry watched his with Huff. The team that would prevail would be the one that found something on film that they could exploit in the game. Even I knew that it would be the Colts because this is the game that put Unitas on the map as the premier quarterback that all boys wanted to emulate. He became Johnny U and along with the the media introduced the idea that the quarterback was an All American hero. The players would get stronger and faster, but Johnny U was the first star who utilized television on the game’s biggest stage to catapult football ahead of baseball into sports fans’ hierarchy of fandom.
The author Bowden interviewed many surviving players and coaches fifty years after the game that the Colts won 23-17 in sudden death overtime. It was the first usage of overtime in a championship game and it would not be until Super Bowl LI that the game needed extra time to decide a winner. That game also featured a master quarterback who would lead his team on a final epic drive. By the time of Super Bowl LI, the league and game had become a spectacle. Every playoff team for the most part was gifted with the best players. Today, kids would rather play football or basketball than baseball, with America’s original pastime seeing it’s fan base dwindle. This was not always the case. In the late 1950s as America moved from its most wholesome era toward the turbulent 1960s, change abounded. That change saw football overtake baseball as America’s most watched sport, and it has never looked back. While I will always place baseball before football in my place of fandom, this is not the case for millions of Americans who took advantage of the marriage of football and television , which changed football into the multibillion dollar industry that it is today. The path toward today’s game began back in 1958 with that first televised championship game between the Colts and Giants. Whereas today the baseball and football seasons intersect, that game sixty six years ago vaulted football ahead. Most fans today would tell you that on the final day of baseball’s compelling season that football is their sport of choice, all thanks to the launching of the mystique of Johnny Unitas on a compelling game played out on national television.
3.75 stars
September 14, 2017
If you are a football fan this is a must read. The title says it all......it probably is the best game ever or at least in the top 5 in modern NFL history. The author, who also wrote Blackhawk Down, captures the excitement of the game and the weeks before the championship. He concentrates on several of the players, their backgrounds and personalities.....Johnny Unitas (a "guy next door" type), Raymond Berry (a driven loner), Frank Gifford (a prima donna), Gino Marchetti (a beast on the field), and Art "Fatso" Donovan (an overweight joker who liked a couple of beers before the game).
This was the first game that ever used the "sudden death" rule and many of the players thought that the game had ended in a tie and headed for the locker room. Obviously someone forgot to tell them that this rule was now in effect! You can feel the excitement and disbelief that gripped the crowd as the teams reassembled to continue play.
The author traces the change in training regimes.....most of the huge linemen packed on food, drank beer, played dirty, and smoked at halftime. But players like Unitas and Berry followed a different route which soon became the training model used today. It was indeed the birth of the modern NFL and pro football came into its own and was no longer considered a bunch of ruffians whose objective was to break the limbs of the opposition.
A terrific book, beautifully written. Highly recommended.
This was the first game that ever used the "sudden death" rule and many of the players thought that the game had ended in a tie and headed for the locker room. Obviously someone forgot to tell them that this rule was now in effect! You can feel the excitement and disbelief that gripped the crowd as the teams reassembled to continue play.
The author traces the change in training regimes.....most of the huge linemen packed on food, drank beer, played dirty, and smoked at halftime. But players like Unitas and Berry followed a different route which soon became the training model used today. It was indeed the birth of the modern NFL and pro football came into its own and was no longer considered a bunch of ruffians whose objective was to break the limbs of the opposition.
A terrific book, beautifully written. Highly recommended.
February 26, 2024
The Best Game Ever by Mark Bowden
I have read three other books by Mark Bowden and he is an excellent writer. One of these 'Finding Pablo' I consider a five-star read. This book is not quite at that level. It was especially interesting but not because of the drama of the game which is a little hard to capture in a literary format. It is interesting because on this iconic day way back in December 1958 there were 17 future Hall of Famers there. The list included twelve players, three coaches and two owners:
1. Weeb Ewbank
2. Vince Lombardi
3. Tom Landry
4. Tim Mara
5. Wellington Mara
6. Sam Huff
7. Johnny Unitas
8. Raymond Berry
9. Jim Parker
10. Lenny Moore
11. Gino Marchetti
12. Art Donovan
13. Roosevelt Brown
14. Frank Gifford
15. Emlen Tunnel
16. Don Maynard
17. Andy Robustelli
This game even eclipsed the iconic 1932 World Series between the Cubs and Yankees that would feature 15 future Hall of Famers.
There were so many players quoted in the book and the author painted a very convincing scene. The only criticism that I have is that the ordering of the book was not very linear, so the flow was disjointed.
4 stars
I have read three other books by Mark Bowden and he is an excellent writer. One of these 'Finding Pablo' I consider a five-star read. This book is not quite at that level. It was especially interesting but not because of the drama of the game which is a little hard to capture in a literary format. It is interesting because on this iconic day way back in December 1958 there were 17 future Hall of Famers there. The list included twelve players, three coaches and two owners:
1. Weeb Ewbank
2. Vince Lombardi
3. Tom Landry
4. Tim Mara
5. Wellington Mara
6. Sam Huff
7. Johnny Unitas
8. Raymond Berry
9. Jim Parker
10. Lenny Moore
11. Gino Marchetti
12. Art Donovan
13. Roosevelt Brown
14. Frank Gifford
15. Emlen Tunnel
16. Don Maynard
17. Andy Robustelli
This game even eclipsed the iconic 1932 World Series between the Cubs and Yankees that would feature 15 future Hall of Famers.
There were so many players quoted in the book and the author painted a very convincing scene. The only criticism that I have is that the ordering of the book was not very linear, so the flow was disjointed.
4 stars
August 19, 2020
Forty-five million people in 1958 are watching the first ever telecast of NFL Championship Game. The game has ended in a tie and the Baltimore Colts and NY Giants are heading into sudden overtime. Whoever scores first wins the Championship game. Baltimore takes over the football after NY fails to score. Through a bold mix of passing and rushing, Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas slowly brought his team all the way to the Giants' eight-yard line, where he called a timeout. All of sudden 45 million TV's in America see snow and NBC's TV signal has been disconnected, aaaaaaaaagh. The Colts were on the Giants' eight-yard line! The game could be over on the very next play!! Mark Bowden puts the reader on the edge of your seat reading about a classic football matchup that has been "the greatest game ever played." I highly recommend it to see how it ends.
September 3, 2017
Adequate, short book, about the Giants vs Colts 1958 NFL Championship game, the first to go into sudden death overtime, the game that affixed football as the made-for-TV sport, and (it still is said) the greatest game ever played.
September 25, 2008
The 1958 NFL championship game between the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts is one of those games that sports legends are built around. Billed as "the best game ever," it was the moment when a multitude of factors came together to give birth to the most popular sport in the world, the NFL.
Unfortunately, footage of the game is lost to the ravages of time.
That only makes Mark Bowden's account of the game more compelling and extraordinary. Bowden interviews players who played in the game, coaches and staffs as well as looking at the unique series of factors that led to the crossroads in history. Bowden puts you in the action, making you feel like you're there, watching the game unfold or even playing the game. The story of the strategy, the hopes, the dreams and the game itself will keep you turning the pages. Even if you're not a football fan, you'll find something intriguing about this account of events.
Unfortunately, footage of the game is lost to the ravages of time.
That only makes Mark Bowden's account of the game more compelling and extraordinary. Bowden interviews players who played in the game, coaches and staffs as well as looking at the unique series of factors that led to the crossroads in history. Bowden puts you in the action, making you feel like you're there, watching the game unfold or even playing the game. The story of the strategy, the hopes, the dreams and the game itself will keep you turning the pages. Even if you're not a football fan, you'll find something intriguing about this account of events.
September 25, 2016
So there I am, cruising along when I see this book just kind of sitting there. As I am a sucker for the printed word, I thought "Hey Mark Bowden, I know him." and took the book along with me. Then I cracked the first page.
You don't have to be a huge football fan to appreciate what Bowden put together on football and the Giant Vs Colts game of 1958. He tells the story of the game so well that you find yourself blitzing through the book, and double checking who won on Wikipedia while you're at it. Bowden also has a gift and natural ability to weave the many other smaller, but no less important, stories of the men, the evolving game, and all the technological shifts that helped make Football the game that it is today.
A fast, fun, and very enjoyable book, certainly for sports fans, but great for journalism fans as well.
You don't have to be a huge football fan to appreciate what Bowden put together on football and the Giant Vs Colts game of 1958. He tells the story of the game so well that you find yourself blitzing through the book, and double checking who won on Wikipedia while you're at it. Bowden also has a gift and natural ability to weave the many other smaller, but no less important, stories of the men, the evolving game, and all the technological shifts that helped make Football the game that it is today.
A fast, fun, and very enjoyable book, certainly for sports fans, but great for journalism fans as well.
April 29, 2018
There are a lot of better sports books, football books, and even books about this particular game. This book is okay, but suffers from some strange writing and a bit of amateurish knowledge about football. It's also not really passionate about the game in general or the particular game that it covers, even though it tries to make the point that the game was all about passion.
First, the basics. On December 28, 1958, the Baltimore Colts played the New York Giants for the National Football League championship. This was about a decade before the Super Bowl was created. The Colts won a thrilling game in overtime, and it's considered one of the greatest football games ever. It's also the most influential football game ever because it was both exciting and the first highly watched game across the country, due to the rising prevalence of TV sets in homes and bars. A direct path can be charted from that game to the massive hype machine that is pro football today.
Author Mark Bowden gives some background and perspective on football leading up to that pivotal year and date. It's amazing that players had off-the-field jobs -- some of them during the season (like selling insurance) -- because football rarely paid more than $10,000 per year. Average salaries were half of that. Few players trained outside of the season, and even during the schedule, everybody drank lots of beer. A guy could play on the defensive line at 230-240 lbs., though some linemen were much bigger.
Things were starting to change. The game was getting more sophisticated on the field and more popular off the field. And the book does a good job of profiling how Raymond Berry, star receiver for the Colts, was leading the way. Berry was less physically talented than most receivers, at least as far as size, speed and eyesight goes (he wore contact lenses, which were very unusual at the time). But by studying how to play the game, how to make moves to get open, and which moves would work best against which opponents, he made himself into a star. Berry's example would become the norm in a couple of decades, but at the time he was simply seen as weird and obsessive.
Berry caught passes from Johnny Unitas, the greatest quarterback of his era. But Unitas, too, was not a guaranteed success in pro football. He'd been dropped by his first team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and played semi-professional football for a year before getting his last chance with the Colts. Like Berry, he worked relentlessly to get everything just right. And while he had fantastic arm strength, he was one of the least mobile quarterbacks of his era, at a time when QBs still ran the ball often. Again, the description of Unitas is good and not overdone -- there are full books on him for those really curious.
So, the ultra-serious Unitas and Berry led a team that was mostly made up of goofballs and jokers -- guys like Artie Donovan. They were serious about football, but also about having a good time in the locker room and outside the stadium. The author doesn't dwell on it too much, but has a few well-chosen anecdotes, especially charming ones about owner Carroll Rosenbloom, who gave players downpayments for homes, set them up in businesses, and basically tried to treat them like family. As a team, the Colts were rising, well, like young Colts; it was their 2nd consecutive season with a 9-3 record.
Their opponents, the NY Giants, had been among the best teams in football for the last 5-6 years. They had stars, especially on defense, and pretty boys on offense. The Giants were arrogant, but they played hard, too. Nobody played harder or dirtier than Robert E. Lee "Sam" Huff, their ferocious middle linebacker. As the author explains, Huff revolutionized the linebacker position in a defense created by Tom Landry. The gist of it was to have the lineman neutralize their men, and have the linebackers see the play and bust it up. If it was a pass, the linebackers had to recognize that and get back on pass defense. It took speed and smarts, as well as brute strength. And when it worked, those Giants (or later Steelers or Bears teams) were very tough to beat.
So, the teams meet -- league's best offense vs. its best defense. The author pulls out the inevitable cliche of "irresistible force meets immovable object." And yet, the game was sloppy. Seven or 8 fumbles. Missed field goals. Quarterbacks getting sacked. And so on. But as the game continued, and as it got darker and colder, it became a test of wills that gripped the attention of everyone who saw it. And when the Colts won with a late field goal and then a touchdown in overtime, it was something that nobody had ever seen before. And the rest is history.
So why don't I Iove the book? First, it's a bit flat in parts, as noted already. He doesn't maximize the drama of the game, though he has some nice phrases to set the scene. Second, the author has some weird ticks. Like he uses first names for the Colts players "Raymond," "John" and coach "Weeb" Ewbanks. But he uses last names for the Giants: "Gifford," "Huff" and "Connerly." Why? Third, he repeats a number of things about the game that don't need to be repeated, and he pulls in other things that seem irrelevant, like a 16-year-old kid who got a well-known photo of the winning touchdown -- but so what? Fourth, he makes what I consider to be a few elementary mistakes about football. The one I can remember best is that he refers to one Giants player as sacking the quarterback three or four times "every game." Well, there were 12 games per season then, so that's 36 or more sacks. The pro football record is something like 23, and that's in a 16-game season. And quarterbacks throw twice as often now -- i.e., twice as many sack opportunities. So the claim that some guy had 3 or 4 sacks per game is preposterous, and just sloppy. Maybe the lineman hit the QB that many times a game, but that's different. The author is precise about other things, like Raymond Berry's study notebooks, so he could be precise about this, too.
Anyway, it's a decent book, but there are other options.
First, the basics. On December 28, 1958, the Baltimore Colts played the New York Giants for the National Football League championship. This was about a decade before the Super Bowl was created. The Colts won a thrilling game in overtime, and it's considered one of the greatest football games ever. It's also the most influential football game ever because it was both exciting and the first highly watched game across the country, due to the rising prevalence of TV sets in homes and bars. A direct path can be charted from that game to the massive hype machine that is pro football today.
Author Mark Bowden gives some background and perspective on football leading up to that pivotal year and date. It's amazing that players had off-the-field jobs -- some of them during the season (like selling insurance) -- because football rarely paid more than $10,000 per year. Average salaries were half of that. Few players trained outside of the season, and even during the schedule, everybody drank lots of beer. A guy could play on the defensive line at 230-240 lbs., though some linemen were much bigger.
Things were starting to change. The game was getting more sophisticated on the field and more popular off the field. And the book does a good job of profiling how Raymond Berry, star receiver for the Colts, was leading the way. Berry was less physically talented than most receivers, at least as far as size, speed and eyesight goes (he wore contact lenses, which were very unusual at the time). But by studying how to play the game, how to make moves to get open, and which moves would work best against which opponents, he made himself into a star. Berry's example would become the norm in a couple of decades, but at the time he was simply seen as weird and obsessive.
Berry caught passes from Johnny Unitas, the greatest quarterback of his era. But Unitas, too, was not a guaranteed success in pro football. He'd been dropped by his first team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and played semi-professional football for a year before getting his last chance with the Colts. Like Berry, he worked relentlessly to get everything just right. And while he had fantastic arm strength, he was one of the least mobile quarterbacks of his era, at a time when QBs still ran the ball often. Again, the description of Unitas is good and not overdone -- there are full books on him for those really curious.
So, the ultra-serious Unitas and Berry led a team that was mostly made up of goofballs and jokers -- guys like Artie Donovan. They were serious about football, but also about having a good time in the locker room and outside the stadium. The author doesn't dwell on it too much, but has a few well-chosen anecdotes, especially charming ones about owner Carroll Rosenbloom, who gave players downpayments for homes, set them up in businesses, and basically tried to treat them like family. As a team, the Colts were rising, well, like young Colts; it was their 2nd consecutive season with a 9-3 record.
Their opponents, the NY Giants, had been among the best teams in football for the last 5-6 years. They had stars, especially on defense, and pretty boys on offense. The Giants were arrogant, but they played hard, too. Nobody played harder or dirtier than Robert E. Lee "Sam" Huff, their ferocious middle linebacker. As the author explains, Huff revolutionized the linebacker position in a defense created by Tom Landry. The gist of it was to have the lineman neutralize their men, and have the linebackers see the play and bust it up. If it was a pass, the linebackers had to recognize that and get back on pass defense. It took speed and smarts, as well as brute strength. And when it worked, those Giants (or later Steelers or Bears teams) were very tough to beat.
So, the teams meet -- league's best offense vs. its best defense. The author pulls out the inevitable cliche of "irresistible force meets immovable object." And yet, the game was sloppy. Seven or 8 fumbles. Missed field goals. Quarterbacks getting sacked. And so on. But as the game continued, and as it got darker and colder, it became a test of wills that gripped the attention of everyone who saw it. And when the Colts won with a late field goal and then a touchdown in overtime, it was something that nobody had ever seen before. And the rest is history.
So why don't I Iove the book? First, it's a bit flat in parts, as noted already. He doesn't maximize the drama of the game, though he has some nice phrases to set the scene. Second, the author has some weird ticks. Like he uses first names for the Colts players "Raymond," "John" and coach "Weeb" Ewbanks. But he uses last names for the Giants: "Gifford," "Huff" and "Connerly." Why? Third, he repeats a number of things about the game that don't need to be repeated, and he pulls in other things that seem irrelevant, like a 16-year-old kid who got a well-known photo of the winning touchdown -- but so what? Fourth, he makes what I consider to be a few elementary mistakes about football. The one I can remember best is that he refers to one Giants player as sacking the quarterback three or four times "every game." Well, there were 12 games per season then, so that's 36 or more sacks. The pro football record is something like 23, and that's in a 16-game season. And quarterbacks throw twice as often now -- i.e., twice as many sack opportunities. So the claim that some guy had 3 or 4 sacks per game is preposterous, and just sloppy. Maybe the lineman hit the QB that many times a game, but that's different. The author is precise about other things, like Raymond Berry's study notebooks, so he could be precise about this, too.
Anyway, it's a decent book, but there are other options.
January 5, 2020
Cool history of a gone time. Tons of familiar names.
October 21, 2024
Great book about American Football’s leap into the future with the televised Championship game in 1958. Insights into some of the greatest players of that era.
February 7, 2011
A good book that tells a great story about one of the most fascinating moments in football history.
Before flower websites paid $3 million for a 30 second ad; before the Black Eyed Peas and a thousand neon dancers pranced and prattled in auto-tune at halftime; before juiced up, ultra fit, millionaire athletes zoomed around in HD inside a Dallas spaceship; the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants made it all possible in 1958. The game is a fascinating microcosm of everything football would become.
I already forgot who the New York coach was, because he was overshadowed by his two top assistants, Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry, who would go on to legendary head coaching careers in Green Bay and Dallas. Around this time, Landry started experimenting with a new defensive wrinkle called the 4-3 (previously, the idea of subtracting a man from the defensive line, giving the offense a one-man advantage in the era of scrum football was unheard of). He placed his star, Sam Huff, at the novel middle linebacker position, who became a terror, revolutionizing defensive strategy.
Whereas the Giants were a top team in a glamorous city, Baltimore had never achieved much in a decidedly blue collar town. At the start of the 1958 season, John Unitas was an unknown back-up recently cut by Pittsburgh. He was soon approached by an equally anonymous receiver named Raymond Berry, who entered camp that year thinking he'd probably get cut. Berry is described by the author as being glaringly unathletic, even by the standards of that era. But he also had a unique and almost neurotic drive to be great in an era in which most players guzzled pizza and beer at the local pub after practices and games.
To the constant amusement of his teammates, Berry practiced. And by a sheer stroke of luck, in August 1958 he had a future Hall of Famer as a backup with time on his hands. For (apparently) the first time ever, a quarterback and receiver worked together on routes and timing, and studied film. After seeing a formation in which a linebacker shifted over to cover the end, they decided if that ever occurred in a game that Berry would forget the called route and run a slant to the now-unoccupied part of the field.
By the time the two teams met in the NFL Championship game in December, Landry's 4-3 was creating havoc and the Unitas-to-Berry combo, now a star tandem, was in an evolutionary groove on offense. This game happened to take place in the exact year in which football's television viewership, and popularity as a whole, was beginning to take off. The ratings for the '58 game would shatter the previous record. And this unprecedented audience found itself watching the Colts, down 7 in the 4th quarter, mount a furious comeback.
With less than two minutes to play, on 3rd and long from their own territory, Raymond Berry split wide in preparation to run an out route. Berry had already obliterated the receiving record in the game, and Tom Landry had had enough -- he sent the linebacker out to cover Berry. With the game on the line, Berry recalled that one film session five months earlier and looked to Unitas lining up under center, wondering if he did too. Vocal audibles had yet to take effect, so Berry took the eye contact from Unitas as an affirmative signal, and ran the slant. The pass hit him in stride for a huge gain (the 3:52 mark here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCYwY1...). Considering the way another Colt would run his offense fifty years later, this was like the ape discovering tools in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The Colts would score and regulation would end in a tie. On top of all that had occurred -- the new offense, the new defense, the new viewership -- it was the first ever sudden death NFL game. The rule was so new, half the players thought the game was over and started trotting into the locker room. The Colts would hold the Giants in OT and score on their first possession, and football would never be the same.
Lombardi, Landry, Unitas, Berry, Huff and many of the other players in that game would become Hall of Famers. Salaries would begin to skyrocket and teams everywhere would start adapting to what the Colts and Giants had introduced to the game. Football would become America's new pastime. And thank God, because I don't know what I'd do without Christina Aguilera butchering our proud anthem, Fergie caterwauling alongside a comatose Slash, Usher doing flips and splits for no reason, and Kim Kardashian, aka "the 2011 Raymond Berry" appearing in the first-ever nationally televised softcore porn episode.
Before flower websites paid $3 million for a 30 second ad; before the Black Eyed Peas and a thousand neon dancers pranced and prattled in auto-tune at halftime; before juiced up, ultra fit, millionaire athletes zoomed around in HD inside a Dallas spaceship; the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants made it all possible in 1958. The game is a fascinating microcosm of everything football would become.
I already forgot who the New York coach was, because he was overshadowed by his two top assistants, Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry, who would go on to legendary head coaching careers in Green Bay and Dallas. Around this time, Landry started experimenting with a new defensive wrinkle called the 4-3 (previously, the idea of subtracting a man from the defensive line, giving the offense a one-man advantage in the era of scrum football was unheard of). He placed his star, Sam Huff, at the novel middle linebacker position, who became a terror, revolutionizing defensive strategy.
Whereas the Giants were a top team in a glamorous city, Baltimore had never achieved much in a decidedly blue collar town. At the start of the 1958 season, John Unitas was an unknown back-up recently cut by Pittsburgh. He was soon approached by an equally anonymous receiver named Raymond Berry, who entered camp that year thinking he'd probably get cut. Berry is described by the author as being glaringly unathletic, even by the standards of that era. But he also had a unique and almost neurotic drive to be great in an era in which most players guzzled pizza and beer at the local pub after practices and games.
To the constant amusement of his teammates, Berry practiced. And by a sheer stroke of luck, in August 1958 he had a future Hall of Famer as a backup with time on his hands. For (apparently) the first time ever, a quarterback and receiver worked together on routes and timing, and studied film. After seeing a formation in which a linebacker shifted over to cover the end, they decided if that ever occurred in a game that Berry would forget the called route and run a slant to the now-unoccupied part of the field.
By the time the two teams met in the NFL Championship game in December, Landry's 4-3 was creating havoc and the Unitas-to-Berry combo, now a star tandem, was in an evolutionary groove on offense. This game happened to take place in the exact year in which football's television viewership, and popularity as a whole, was beginning to take off. The ratings for the '58 game would shatter the previous record. And this unprecedented audience found itself watching the Colts, down 7 in the 4th quarter, mount a furious comeback.
With less than two minutes to play, on 3rd and long from their own territory, Raymond Berry split wide in preparation to run an out route. Berry had already obliterated the receiving record in the game, and Tom Landry had had enough -- he sent the linebacker out to cover Berry. With the game on the line, Berry recalled that one film session five months earlier and looked to Unitas lining up under center, wondering if he did too. Vocal audibles had yet to take effect, so Berry took the eye contact from Unitas as an affirmative signal, and ran the slant. The pass hit him in stride for a huge gain (the 3:52 mark here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCYwY1...). Considering the way another Colt would run his offense fifty years later, this was like the ape discovering tools in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The Colts would score and regulation would end in a tie. On top of all that had occurred -- the new offense, the new defense, the new viewership -- it was the first ever sudden death NFL game. The rule was so new, half the players thought the game was over and started trotting into the locker room. The Colts would hold the Giants in OT and score on their first possession, and football would never be the same.
Lombardi, Landry, Unitas, Berry, Huff and many of the other players in that game would become Hall of Famers. Salaries would begin to skyrocket and teams everywhere would start adapting to what the Colts and Giants had introduced to the game. Football would become America's new pastime. And thank God, because I don't know what I'd do without Christina Aguilera butchering our proud anthem, Fergie caterwauling alongside a comatose Slash, Usher doing flips and splits for no reason, and Kim Kardashian, aka "the 2011 Raymond Berry" appearing in the first-ever nationally televised softcore porn episode.
September 21, 2023
Great read about the NFL back in the day. It's interesting to hear what the players made and where they stayed in the city. Just a real slice of American history.
August 5, 2017
Really enjoyed this book. If you are an NFL fan/historian you should do yourself a favor and read about the 1958 Championship game. This is really the birth of the modern NFL. There are multiple books on this game and although this is the only one I've read, I would recommend it. Lots of interesting facts on the era and it is pretty wild to see how far the league has come since then. Would have been a quick read if I'd have had more time.
September 30, 2024
3.9 stars
My Rating Scale:
1- Would actively tell others to avoid.
2- Wish I did not read.
3- Solid book
4-An excellent book that I might re-read someday.
5-One of my favorites, that I would recommend to almost anyone, or want to own and re-read throughout my life
A perfect read for anyone like myself who has been a lifelong fan of the NFL. Bowden masterfully sets the stage around the '58 NFL championship, which launched the NFL into a mainstay of American television. While I knew many of the big names from the late 50s and early 60s NFL, Bowden helps to build their legend by putting a magnifying glass on how several of them came to be on the field in this NFL classic.
IT has heartwarming aspects, many short chuckles, and the narrative of the game itself translates well to football mind trying to imagine the plays in their head as if listening to the radio.
Overall anyone with moderate NFL knowledge who wants to learn more about the early league should give it a read.
------SPOILERS BELOW------
My Rating Scale:
1- Would actively tell others to avoid.
2- Wish I did not read.
3- Solid book
4-An excellent book that I might re-read someday.
5-One of my favorites, that I would recommend to almost anyone, or want to own and re-read throughout my life
A perfect read for anyone like myself who has been a lifelong fan of the NFL. Bowden masterfully sets the stage around the '58 NFL championship, which launched the NFL into a mainstay of American television. While I knew many of the big names from the late 50s and early 60s NFL, Bowden helps to build their legend by putting a magnifying glass on how several of them came to be on the field in this NFL classic.
IT has heartwarming aspects, many short chuckles, and the narrative of the game itself translates well to football mind trying to imagine the plays in their head as if listening to the radio.
Overall anyone with moderate NFL knowledge who wants to learn more about the early league should give it a read.
------SPOILERS BELOW------
September 19, 2024
A wonderful little football book ! Bowden does a superb job characterizing the two main players written about within, John Unitas and Raymond Berry. I can't help but compare Bowden's prose to that of Tom Callahan in his well known bio of Unitas, 'Johnny U'. Bowden describes Unitas and Berry beautifully and concisely. His essay chapter on Unitas in particular is brilliant, in my opinion. Bowden accomplished in about 20 short pages what, in retrospect, Callahan failed to do in an entire book. The detailed (perfect word here) character study of Berry throughout the book is pretty amazing as well. Berry was nothing if not detailed.
A few caveats for the prospective reader may be helpful. The book is heavily Colts-centric. That slant may be expected, as Baltimore did win the game. But be aware that the author spent many formative years in the city and continually refers to Unitas and Berry as 'John' and 'Raymond'. This seems to feel more quirky the more it is repeated. Also, perhaps only 15 to 20 percent of the book is about the actual game on the field. I was fine with that but the cover may lead the reader to think otherwise. And Bowden's description of the overtime period is pretty clumsy.
As a lifetime NY Giants fan, the few pages written about Sam Huff being traded to Washington were worth a lot to me! If Huff is to be believed, I lost some respect for the memory of Wellington Mara from what I learned.
A few caveats for the prospective reader may be helpful. The book is heavily Colts-centric. That slant may be expected, as Baltimore did win the game. But be aware that the author spent many formative years in the city and continually refers to Unitas and Berry as 'John' and 'Raymond'. This seems to feel more quirky the more it is repeated. Also, perhaps only 15 to 20 percent of the book is about the actual game on the field. I was fine with that but the cover may lead the reader to think otherwise. And Bowden's description of the overtime period is pretty clumsy.
As a lifetime NY Giants fan, the few pages written about Sam Huff being traded to Washington were worth a lot to me! If Huff is to be believed, I lost some respect for the memory of Wellington Mara from what I learned.
July 13, 2019
I have read most of the books in Mark Bowden’s bibliography. This book tops them all concerning The Greatest Game Ever Played. Yes, there is bias toward the Colts but I have seen accounts lean the other way. (Dave Klein even suggests that Myhra’s tying field goal may have been wide.) Nevertheless, I believe his book is fair and balanced.
I particularly appreciate that Bowden called Unitas John instead of Johnny. In all the years I heard Chuck Thompson, the longtime voice of the Colts, I never heard him refer to Unitas by anything but John.
Reading this book in July 2019, I can sadly update the roll of players in this game who have died. Ironically, two Colts defensive ends have passed away. My favorite Colt of all time, the Captain of the team, #89 Gino Marchetti died on April 29 at the age of 93. Gino’s line mate, and the man who replaced him on the defensive line after he broke his leg on that critical third down play late in the fourth quarter, Ordell Brasse, died 35 days earlier. He was 87.
Five stars
I particularly appreciate that Bowden called Unitas John instead of Johnny. In all the years I heard Chuck Thompson, the longtime voice of the Colts, I never heard him refer to Unitas by anything but John.
Reading this book in July 2019, I can sadly update the roll of players in this game who have died. Ironically, two Colts defensive ends have passed away. My favorite Colt of all time, the Captain of the team, #89 Gino Marchetti died on April 29 at the age of 93. Gino’s line mate, and the man who replaced him on the defensive line after he broke his leg on that critical third down play late in the fourth quarter, Ordell Brasse, died 35 days earlier. He was 87.
Five stars
February 8, 2017
Highly recommended to all NE Patriots fans right now. Atlanta fans can skip it for sure (sorry y'all).
Did you know that the last time there was a Professional Football Championship decided by sudden death overtime was this game in 1958? Did you know that before that there was no sudden death overtimes at all and if the last game of the season ended in a tie then no champion was declared?
Just wanted to put that out there.
The book was a pretty good read, but not great. I was going to say 2 1/2 stars but decided to give it an extra half a star because the parallels between this game and Super Bowl LI were just to delicious to ignore.
There is a book by Tom Callahan called Johnny U that is much more detailed and entertaining if you are interested in this stuff.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
Did you know that the last time there was a Professional Football Championship decided by sudden death overtime was this game in 1958? Did you know that before that there was no sudden death overtimes at all and if the last game of the season ended in a tie then no champion was declared?
Just wanted to put that out there.
The book was a pretty good read, but not great. I was going to say 2 1/2 stars but decided to give it an extra half a star because the parallels between this game and Super Bowl LI were just to delicious to ignore.
There is a book by Tom Callahan called Johnny U that is much more detailed and entertaining if you are interested in this stuff.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
January 11, 2020
I have enjoyed all of Mark Bowden's books so far, so I figured a book by him about football couldn't miss, and I was not mistaken. The author brings his trademark style to the story of the game that gave birth to the modern era of football, all the TV, money, glitz and glamor...leaving behind the gritty period of players a part time laborers, the days of the superstar were ahead. It was fascinating to see how many of the greats of the game were involved in this one championship, Lombardi, Landry, Unitas, Gifford, etc. Many of humorous anecdotes are laugh out loud funny, especially about Fatso Art Donovan, who went on to a great post-football career as a great interviewee. Highly recommended for fans of the game.
January 8, 2025
Very good reporting on the 1958 NFL championship between the New York Giants and then Baltimore Colts at Yankee Stadium. Great stories on Johnny Unitas, Raymond Berry, Sam Huff, Art Donovan, and many many more. The first half of the book talks about many of the players and how they got there, while the second half discusses the actual game. The prize is Andy Reid watching the game with the author at the end of the book and dissecting plays. Didn't really learn anything new in this book, but if I hadn't read a few other books on this game, this could have possibly been a five. Mark Bowden, who wrote Black Hawk Down, Hue 1968 and a great football book on the Philadelphia Eagles in the early 1990's, writes another good one.
November 6, 2021
The Colts have had two of the top-10 quarterbacks of all time. Peyton Manning, and Johnny Unitas. Unitas was one of the heros of the 1958 team, and a remarkable game of football. One that began the NFL's ascension as the biggest of the American major league sports.
This is a very light read, but Bowden makes a good hash of it, in the spirit of David Halberstam (who reportedly was working on a book on this very topic when he was killed in a car accident). Bowden is a Colt's fan, and (spoiler alert) they would eventually win the game, which if you're a Colts fan (as I am) makes this an even more enjoyable read.
Light but fun.
This is a very light read, but Bowden makes a good hash of it, in the spirit of David Halberstam (who reportedly was working on a book on this very topic when he was killed in a car accident). Bowden is a Colt's fan, and (spoiler alert) they would eventually win the game, which if you're a Colts fan (as I am) makes this an even more enjoyable read.
Light but fun.
April 9, 2023
Want to know more! Lots of interesting history of the early NFL and key players of Colts and Giants from 1958 championship game. I found the bio of Raymond Berry particularly interesting, especially how he was so meticulous in an age where very few were. Also, the comparison of the lives and lifestyles of the Giants vs that of the Colts, the blue collar every men, most (all?) of whom had day jobs. I wish the author had detailed the story of some of the other players, and the context of the times in more detail. This would have added to the depth / richness of the meaning of the story and why it was so impactful.
April 25, 2018
Understand up front. I'm not a particular fan of football. I've nothing against it. I'm just not very interested. So how did I choose this book?
I have a rule. If certain people in my life suggest a book, I read it.
That said, football fan or not, I found this mid fifties history of the league, the Giants, and the Colts absolutely fascinating. That's got to be the writer's achievement. He subtly weaves a portrait of America in the fifties through his football plot. And it just pulls you in.
I highly recommend it to anyone who loves good writing and history.
I have a rule. If certain people in my life suggest a book, I read it.
That said, football fan or not, I found this mid fifties history of the league, the Giants, and the Colts absolutely fascinating. That's got to be the writer's achievement. He subtly weaves a portrait of America in the fifties through his football plot. And it just pulls you in.
I highly recommend it to anyone who loves good writing and history.
March 16, 2020
An excellent book about the first overtime game played in the NFL. The championship game in 1958 between the Giants and the Colts. This was also the first widely viewed game on TV. The players were one generation before I started following the game but many of these guys were finishing their careers in the 1960's so I remember many of them. The author does an excellent job highlighting several players and then describes the game in detail. A very fun read. Very highly recommended to fans of the NFL.
April 4, 2023
Two Minute Warning
I don’t know if Bowden loves the players or the game more. 1958 I was 18 working part-time in a grocery store, I don’t know if I saw The Best Game Ever or not. But I remember the players. Rosie Greer, John Unitas, Frank Gifford et al, and that’s what the book is about. Their pain, their courage, their love for each other and their teams. And of course their stories of daring do and fun. Bowden allows you to know them. It’s a great read. Thank you, Mr. Bowden.
I don’t know if Bowden loves the players or the game more. 1958 I was 18 working part-time in a grocery store, I don’t know if I saw The Best Game Ever or not. But I remember the players. Rosie Greer, John Unitas, Frank Gifford et al, and that’s what the book is about. Their pain, their courage, their love for each other and their teams. And of course their stories of daring do and fun. Bowden allows you to know them. It’s a great read. Thank you, Mr. Bowden.
December 16, 2021
This is a truly awesome book. I have read it multiple times, and I keep finding myself gravitating back to it whenever I need something to read. You get to know the players a people, not just athletes, which just enhances the pull of the story and at the end, the game itself. It would be fitting to say that while the main plotline may revolve around sports, this is not a sportsbook. And that, in my book, is the highest compliment that can be paid to such a work of literature.
July 14, 2024
The game that put the NFL into the sports mainstream of this country. Baltimore Colts vs the New York Giants. NFL Championship game. First OT game in NFL history. Colts win on Alan Ameche run 23-17. Great players like Johnny Unitas, Ray Berry, Frank Gifford .
Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry were assistant coaches for New York but they would both go on to greater acclaim.
A good read for fans of the NFL.
Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry were assistant coaches for New York but they would both go on to greater acclaim.
A good read for fans of the NFL.
November 18, 2017
Marvelous little read. The 1958 NFL Championship has been beat to death as few other sporting events have, it and Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, but Bowden packs the narrative with dozens of little revelations, even for the hardest core football fan. Well done.
January 14, 2023
This book is a quick read, full of entertaining anecdotes and stories from Fatso, Raymond, and Sam Huff. I had to keep reminding myself it was published in 2008, before so many archival sources were digitized. The primary source interviews make the book enjoyable.
September 27, 2023
Title Says It All!
Captivating glimpse of football history. A page turner, amazing insights, stories and anecdotes in an easy to read style. Funny, accurate, poignant capturing the emotions of a wonderful sports phenomenon.
Captivating glimpse of football history. A page turner, amazing insights, stories and anecdotes in an easy to read style. Funny, accurate, poignant capturing the emotions of a wonderful sports phenomenon.
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