The Best Game Ever

Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL

Nonfiction, Sports, Football
Cover of the book The Best Game Ever by Mark Bowden, Grove Atlantic
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Author: Mark Bowden ISBN: 9781555848187
Publisher: Grove Atlantic Publication: May 6, 2009
Imprint: Grove Press Language: English
Author: Mark Bowden
ISBN: 9781555848187
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Publication: May 6, 2009
Imprint: Grove Press
Language: English

The NFL championship game that changed the history of football: a New York Times bestseller 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 selling insurance or taking shifts at Bethlehem Steel, and the trendy New York glamour boys of splashy magazine ads and TV commercials, who mingled with the likes of 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 a country in transition, and on today’s NFL (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
 

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

The NFL championship game that changed the history of football: a New York Times bestseller 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 selling insurance or taking shifts at Bethlehem Steel, and the trendy New York glamour boys of splashy magazine ads and TV commercials, who mingled with the likes of 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 a country in transition, and on today’s NFL (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
 

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