Remember back in the last 1980s and early 1990s when Ted Turner spent his fortune buying up old films and "colorizing" them?
ESPN plans to do the same thing when they re-broadcast the "Greatest Game Ever Played" this Saturday. The "Greatest Game" was the 1958 NFL Championship game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants.
The game will celebrate its 50th anniversary on December 28th (not sure why ESPN is deciding to show the game two weeks earlier) and is credited with turning the NFL into a national passion. It was nationally televised on NBC and was the league's first ever sudden-death overtime game.
Fifteen members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame were in that game: Johnny Unitas, Sam Huff, Gino Marchetti, Frank Gifford, Don Maynard, Raymond Berry, Art Donovan, Rosey Brown, Lenny Moore, Andy Robustetti, Emlen Tunnell and Jim Parker. Hall of Famer Weeb Ewbank was head coach of the Colts; Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry were coordinators for the Giants.
Donovan McNabb may be interested to know that NFL games used to end in ties and there were no overtime periods. That is until 1958. It doesn't get much better than two great teams heading into overtime in Yankee Stadium on national television. The game ended in dramatic fashion as Baltimore's Alan Ameche bowled into the endzone for the game winning score.
Berry caught 12 passes for 178 yards and a touchdown. His 12 receptions are still a NFL Championship Game/Super Bowl record.
Something else also stands: this is still the only NFL Championship Game or Super Bowl to go into overtime. It hasn't happened in the 50 years since.
The 1962 AFL Championship game actually went to double-overtime. The Dallas Texans would go on to beat the Houston Oilers, 20-17.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-10-2008 @ 10:06AM
Leo said...
My 2 college-age sons & I will be taking in the game for sure! The timing and showing seems pretty good since there are no college games to compete with and the end of December is playoff time. That will ensure a vast audience.
The boys will be suprised to see the massive old Yankee Stadium before the changes it undertook. and see football as it was.No show-boating,celebrations, dancing and so on... men playing the game as it was intended. I was only 9 when the game was played and don't remember much if anything at all...but in a year or two became a devout fan as this game promoted such a rapid growth in fan base. I look foward to seeing all those great players in action for an entire game.
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12-10-2008 @ 11:52AM
Michelle said...
Oh what bull. The greatest games ever played were in the sixties by the Green Bay Packers. The "Ice Bowl" against Dallas is classic football at its finest. They were the FIRST to win the Superbowl, the LOMBARDI TROPHY is named after their coach, and had the NFL and AFL (as they were named in those days) played for something called the Superbowl sooner, Green Bay would have had at least 2-3 more. I'm not even a Packers fan, and I know this football fact. Get REAL!
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12-10-2008 @ 1:18PM
Todd said...
Michelle,
THE game called "The Greatest Game Ever Played" is the 1958 NFL Championship that is being rebroadcast. That's what that game has been referred to as since the day it happened.
That's not to say that there haven't been other great games, and arguably some greater in some people's minds, but the only one that gets that moniker is the one in this article, for many of the reasons listed.
No matter how many great catches there may occur in the history of the game, only one is "The Catch" (Clark from Montana to beat the Cowboys) and only one reception is "Immaculate" (Harris off a deflection to beat the Raiders). Was Lynn Swann's phenomenal catch in the Super Bowl (I don't need to describe if further, you know the one) great. Yes. But it isn't "The Catch", nor "The Immaculate Reception".
And no matter how great any other game might be, the 1958 NFL Championship will always be "The Greatest Game Ever Played".
12-17-2008 @ 4:17PM
Bill Swingler said...
We missed this game in NY but didn't miss it it Baltimore the folling year in Baltimore.
Where can I buy the CD of the 1958 game?
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1-05-2009 @ 12:51AM
dashford said...
Just watched the show -- I see the "colorizing" technology hasn't improved in the past 15 years or so. God, it's so awful. It doesn't resemble color footage in any way. It's just tinting anyway, not "colorizing", because it really most resembles those turn-of-the-[20th] century hand-tinted postcards.
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