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WPCNR VIEW FROM THE UPPER DECK. By Bull Allen. January 20, 2008: Nobody mentions The Greatest Football Game Ever Played any more, but it was played forty nine years and three weeks ago in Yankee Stadium, December 28, 1958 on a cold day in The Big Ballpark in the Bronx between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Football Giants (there were a baseball Giants back then just moved that year to San Franciso – but they are dead and gone now). The Football Giants were the team along with the hapless Knicks and Rangers that everyone in New York turned to for inspiration and to feel good about themselves. We lived and died with Charlie Conerly,Sam Huff, Frank Gifford, Andy Bathgate, Lou Fontinato, Gump Worsley of the Rangers, and Sweetwater Clifton, Kenny Sears and Carl Braun of the Knickerbockers.
Old Yankee Stadium, 1958
WPCNR COLLECTION
This was when the Giants played in helmets with NY on them and the uniforms were a lighter blue than they are now, that some how made them seem vulnerable, approachable. The players all seemed so cleancut. The days of Frank (Gifford), Kyle (Rote), Mo (Dick Modzewlewski), Sva (Harland Svare) and Svo (Bob Svoboda), Cliff (Livingston), The two Rosies (Grier and Brown), Jack (Stroud) No 70 Sam (Huff), Chuckin Charlie (Conerly), Bob (Schnelker), Mel (Triplett), Alex (Webster), Dick (Nolan), Jimmy (Patton), Em (Tunnell) and Pat (Summerall) and Andy (Robustelli). You knew them all.
They were known for their great defense. They were characterized by Sam Huff whose mobility and classic red dog forays into opposition backfields glamorized the middle linebacker position.
The offense was studded with names which sounded like football: Conerly, Triplett, Rote, Schnelker, Gifford.
These players had just come from overtaking the real Cleveland Browns (coached by, yes, Paul Brown), tying for the Eastern Division Championship on a 49 yard field goal by Summerall in a snowstorm to tie the Browns then beating them 10-0 in a playoff to earn the right to play the Colts. They were storybook.
When they played on Sundays at 2 PM on Channel 2, (on the road, of course, due to the NFL blackout policy), the best television football announcer, Chris Schenkel, was behind the mike and Jim Gordon did the radio on WNEW.
Blackout
You could not see the 1958 Championship game on television because of NFL blackout rules in home markets then. I listened to Bob Wolff’s radio play-by-play of the game at my grandmother’s house during a family New Year’s party. Being forced to socialize, then drifting back to the radio in my grandmother’s upstairs bedroom.
The field was different then. No synthetic turf. Hashmarks and infields and dust and mud.
This was a time when the wooden goal posts had two uprights and the goalposts stood on the goal line, not the back of the endzone. The field was real on infield dirt in one end. The game seemed much grittier then and the players human-sized. The other thing was the games were much better defensed. Though the offenses made big plays, the scores were lower, the defenses holding leads – but even then the prevent defense was bad and often cost leads in waning moments
Rematch
The Giants had beaten the Colts earlier in the season, 24-21, and this championship was a rematch. It was a game to this day that is second-guessed by Giant fans, much like the 1951 playoff in baseball.
Ultimately, this game see-sawed back and forth into the first sudden death game the NFL ever had. But, to this day, every Giant fan remembers this game. It was termed by Sports Illustrated (then just four years old, and struggling) The Best Football Game Ever Played.
Why? It had turnarounds, takebacks, lead changes, and come-backs-from-the-brinks by both teams. Ultimately, it is given credit for winning hundreds of thousands over to the game of pro football and its unprecedented growth – a lot like the 1975 World Series did for baseball. Sports Illustrated’s coverage of this game, in my opinion also won it widespread acceptance as the sports authority of record in years to come. The game changed as lot of perceptions about professional football.
Cold and Relentless and Dark
The game was played with temperatures in the low thirties and the original high grandstand with its great facade, assured that the lights had to be used early. An aura of grandeur cloaked this game with dramatic vistas and action photographs evoking gladiators in the Roman Coliseum. No Hollywood director of today could recreate the El Greco images this game evoked.
The First Quarter ended with the Giants ahead 3-0 on a Pat Summerall 36 yard field goal. But not before Baltimore’s Johnny Unitas had completed a 60 yard bomb to Lenny Moore to set up a blocked field goal by Baltimore’s Steve Myhra from the Giant 25. Frank Gifford’s sweep around left end for 38 yards set up the Summerall three pointer.
In the Second Quarter the magnificently towering stands grew silent. Baltimore recovered a Giant fumble on the New York 20 on the first play of the quarter. Five running plays later, Baltimore took the lead on a 2 yard Alan Ameche touchdown. Myhra kicked the point and it was Baltimore 7, New York 3.
The Giants recovered a Colt fumble on the Baltimore 10, only to cough the ball up on Frank Gifford’s seond fumble in the backfield at the 14. From the Colt 14, Unitas with less than 4 minutes to go in the half marched Baltimore down the field on runs by Lenny Moore and Ameche and three passes for 28 yards to the Giant 13. On the next play, Unitas connected with Raymond Berry in paydirt on a 13 yard strike to put Baltimore on top at the half, 14-3 (with Myhra’s point).
The Stand
In the gathering dusk of the late afternoon, punctuated by the glow of the lights, the big stadium was buzzing with anxiety as Baltimore taking the second half kickoff, drove methodically down the field picking the Giant Dee apart, trying to put the game away, bleeding clock, marching to the Giants 1.
On 4th down and goal at the 1, he Giants held in a magnificent goal line stand with Ameche being stopped at the 5 on the key play. The Stadium could be heard all the way to Baltimore.
“The Stand” invigorated the Giant offense. From the 5 after the stop, New York came back.
86 Yards to Glory
After three plays, Conerly went deep to Kyle Rote hitting him in stride at the Colt 25. Rote fumbled but Alex Webster gathered it up in stride racing to the Colt 1. Triplett plunged in for the score. Summerall converted and the Giants were back in the game, trailing 14-10 with 4 minutes to go in the Third Quarter. As the teams started play in the final stanza, it was 14-10, Colts.
The Great Quarter
Baltimore was forced to punt in the beginning of the Fourth Quarter, and the Giants took over on their 19. Charlie Conerly completed two passes to Bob Schnelker for 17 yards and then 46 yards to the Colt 15. The place was going crazy. By this time, on radio, Bob Wolff could hardly be heard over the steady roar of the fans. The atmosphere was alive with unbearable anxiety and tension as the violent ballet of competition unfolded below.
Conerly found Frank Gifford in the endzone for 15 yards, Summerall converted and the Giants were giddily ahead, 17-14 with 14 minutes to go.
The Giant offense could not get more points. Play after play the Giant defense doggedly held off the Colt offense. With the Giants driving in the waning five minutes of the game, they had a third down in their own territory. Gifford swung wide cut back and was hit by Big Daddy Lipscomb and Gino Marchetti of the Colts, getting a crucial stop, forcing the Giants to punt. Don Chandler boomed it to the Colt 15.
The Colts were 85 yards away with 2 minutes to go in the game. Unitas using Raymond Berry as his primary receiver threw 7 times, marching the Colts to the Giants 13, hitting Berry three times on third and long for 25 yards, 15 yards and 22 yards to get to position to tie with 10 seconds to go.
Bob Wolff’s call was riveting for Giants fans. Myrha had been blocked on a similar attempt in the First Quarter. Could the Giants do the impossible again? Wolff barked the play-by-play.
“Just 10 seconds left to go…Myhra will attempt to tie from the 20 yard line…Here’s the boot. It’s high…It’s good! He makes it! Myhra makes it with seven seconds to go Steve Myhra ties the ball game, 17-17! How about that?” Note how close a Giant came to blocking the equalizer. Photo World Wide Phot from the WPCNR Collection
Steve Myhra had kicked a 20 yard field goal to tie up the game and send it to Sudden Death for the first time in NFL history.
Fans became very aware of the sideline step out in the waning moments thanks to Mr. Berry.
Sudden Bittersweet Victory
The Giants won the toss to start Sudden Death. The Giants went three and out, Conerly being stopped short of the first down by 2 yards.
Taking over on their own 20, Johnny U and the Colts began a march of artistry and “what might have beens” for Giant fans for the last 49 years.
The Key Play in the Sudden Victory Drive: It’s 3rd and 15 on the Colt 36 at the start of the drive. Unitas is waving receiver Raymond Berry farther down field with the ball in his right hand as the Giants desperately go for the sack and new life. Unitas zips the ball to Raymond Berry on the sideline, bottom picture for a first down on the Giant 43 for 21 yards and the beginning of the end. Photo, Worldwide Photo from the WPCNR Collection
The Colts ran off 12 plays, picking the valiant Giant defense surgically apart. The Unitas-Raymond Berry connection was magic. Unitas hit Berry twice for 33 yards. With the ball on the 1, after a pass to Jim Mutscheller, had put the ball on the 1, Alan Ameche plunged across on third down for the winning touchdown. No stand this time. The small Baltimore contingent of fans cheered wildly while a sigh of silence could be heard over the radio broadcast, as Bob Wolff chanted into the mircrophone,
“It’s third and 1 yard to go for the Championship. Third and one, a pass to Mutscheller put them on the 1 yard line. Unitas barking out the signals for the Baltimore Colts…gives to Ameche…The Colts are the World Champions…Ameche scores!”
So ended the Greatest Football Game Ever Played.
Perhaps this evening there will be another chapter to add to New York Giants’ lore.
But I’ll never forget this game and neither will anyone who saw it or heard it.
