TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Reliving The Day The NFL Arrived

ADVERTISEMENT

By IRA KAUFMAN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 7, 2008

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The NFL wasn't always the king.

Pro football took a seat on the bench to major-league baseball a few generations ago until one game unleashed a Madison Avenue marketing blitz that has lasted a half century.

Fifty years ago this month, the Baltimore Colts traveled to Yankee Stadium to face the New York Giants for the 1958 NFL championship, a matchup now widely hailed as The Greatest Game Ever Played.

In terms of the NFL universe, this was the big bang.

ESPN Films has recaptured the feel and swaying emotions of that Dec. 28, 1958, title game in a special hosted by Chris Berman that utilizes new colorization technology and previously unseen footage of Baltimore's 23-17 overtime victory.

The Colts and Johnny Unitas repeated as NFL champions by beating the Giants again the following year, but it's the riveting 1958 title clash that has evolved into legend.

ESPN will air the special on Saturday at 9 p.m., following the Heisman Trophy presentation.

In case this classic 68-minute game doesn't speak for itself, ESPN invited surviving members of the matchup into the studio to view the footage and offer commentary, along with modern-day counterparts from the Indianapolis Colts and New York Giants.

While watching Baltimore's drive late in regulation that forced the only overtime session in NFL championship game history, Indy coach Tony Dungy discusses Unitas' options with Colts wide receiver Raymond Berry - one of 17 Hall of Famers involved in the outcome on that fateful day.

The football Giants were well supported 50 years ago, but they were overshadowed by Mickey Mantle and the Yankees, who won it all in 1958 and had New York baseball fans all to themselves after the Dodgers and Giants headed to California.

College football was more popular than the NFL in many regions of the country that didn't have a local pro football team to cheer for.

Then along came Unitas, Berry and 15,000 Baltimore fans who made the drive to Yankee Stadium to cheer on their beloved Colts.

Today, a half a million Baltimore natives will swear they were in the Bronx on the day pro football changed forever.

"The guys who played in that game had no idea that game was going to impact their entire lives,"Giants star running back Frank Gifford said. "It's grown almost in a mythological way."

The NFL had only 12 teams at that point and the rival American Football League would begin in 1960, spreading gridiron gospel to outposts like Houston, Buffalo, Boston, Oakland and Denver.

Fifty years later, the Colts-Giants showdown, seen by 45 million viewers tuning in on black-and-white TV screens, is still generally regarded as the most important game in the NFL's 89-year history.

Pro football would soon be generating huge TV contracts, attracting record crowds and replacing baseball as America's national pastime.

ESPN came along 20 years later and turned the telecast of the NFL draft into must-see TV.

We all know pro football arrived in a big way in the 1960s. This ESPN documentary spins a compelling tale of how it got there.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT