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The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL | 
 enlarge | Author: Mark Bowden
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Category: Book
List Price: $23.00
Buy Used: $11.50
You Save: $11.50 (50%)
New (33) Used (11) Collectible (5) from $11.50
Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 6593
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 240
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.1
ISBN: 087113988X
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.332640973
EAN: 9780871139887
ASIN: 087113988X
Publication Date: May 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Clean and gently read. Price-clipped DJ with very modest shelfwear. VG+/VG-
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Product Description
On December 28, 1958, the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts met under the lights of Yankee Stadium for the NFL Championship game. Played in front of sixty-four thousand fans and millions of television viewers around the country, the game would be remembered as the greatest in football history. 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. An estimated forty-five million viewers—at that time the largest crowd to have ever watched a football game—tuned in to see what would become the first sudden-death contest in NFL history. It was a battle of the league's best offense—the Colts—versus its best defense—the Giants. And it was a contest between the blue-collar Baltimore team versus the glamour boys of the Giants squad. The Best Game Ever is a brilliant portrait of how a single game changed the history of American sport. Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the championship, it is destined to be a sports classic.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 What a magnificent book! May 14, 2008
John Kendall (Leander, Texas USA)
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
Mark Bowden has a proven record as an exciting writer of history. The Best Game Ever is his best book ever. He makes the 1958 NFL title game come alive. I have memories as a high school senior of watching this game on television. The game's black-and-white starkness is imbedded in my memory. Mr. Bowden makes this memory come alive in all its vivid character. His lively style is more that of an analytical journalist than an academic historian, and he offers insights that I have not read elsewhere. The photos of this cold-weather game offered in the book made me want to bundle up in spite of the fact that it is 90 degrees in San Antonio (my home) today. Every football fan should be grateful for this book.
 A Playbook of Mixed Success May 11, 2008
Mr. Richard D. Coreno (Berea, Ohio USA)
10 out of 16 found this review helpful
The 1958 NFL championship game between the Colts and Giants has been chronicled and debated so much over the past 50 years that another book would seem to be past redundant.
But author Mark Bowden runs a fly route past the typical coverage and places the contest in a context of the NFL's evolution in the decade after the Second World War and relives the era through sketches of the participants, some who remain familiar names and others whose glory had faded like the print on the pages of sports sections in old newspapers.
The book is an nice primer to new fans and a decent stride down the sidelines to paydirt for those who have read extensively on this classic contest.
 Don't Believe All the Legends! May 8, 2008
S. Hart (Lakewood, CO USA)
8 out of 16 found this review helpful
Raymond Emmett Berry did not have one leg shorter than the other; his father was NEVER called "Ray" by anyone except this author; and he went to Schreiner Junior College because he weighed 151 pounds his senior season in high school and, more importantly, because former Paris Junior College head football coach Chena Gilstrap had just moved to Kerrville as the new Schreiner head coach.
Coach Gilstrap was a life-long friend of both Raymond Emmett--his family name and his "Paris, Texas" name--and his father, Mark Raymond Berry, who was always called "Raymond," "Coach," or "Mr. Berry" by everyone who knew him. Another life-long friend was Gene Stallings--the Texas A&M, Alabama, St. Louis Cardinals coach--who replaced Raymond as the left end at Paris High School after Raymond graduated.
Why couldn't the author just ask Raymond to clarify some of those "legends" and errors instead of just copying them from some old newspaper story? Although they distract from the story--especially if you are Raymond Emmett's cousin, revered his father, and your brother played for Coach Gilstrap at UT Arlington--the story of the game itself is worth every minute of this read. Although I'm obviously somewhat biased, it was certainly the greatest NFL football game I ever saw!
Lightweight treatment of a great game June 16, 2008
Barry Sparks (York, PA)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
December 28, 1958 marks one of the most classic moments in NFL history. That's the date the Baltimore Colts defeated the New York Giants in sudden death overtime to win the NFL title as 45 million fans watched on television. It marked the birth of the modern NFL as football began to step out of the shadows of baseball.
The match up featured the greatest concentration of football talent for one game as 17 future Hall of Famers were involved. It pitted a team of self-made men and the league's best offense (Colts) versus a team of glamour boys and the best defense (Giants).
Author Mark Bowden tells the story of the 1958 championship game through a handful of players and coaches such as Raymond Berry, Weeb Ewbank, Sam Huff, Tom Landry (Giants' defensive coordinator) and Vince Lombardi (Giants' offensive coordinator). Bowden's exceptional study of Berry is the cornerstone of the book.
Bowden recounts how Johnny Unitas and Berry teamed up to take the Colts 86 yards in two minutes to tie the game. And, how Unitas engineered the 13-play drive in overtime to secure the thrilling victory. Unitas' greatness and leadership in the game elevated him to the highest echelon of NFL quarterbacks.
Interestingly, many of the players didn't realize that the game would continue into sudden death overtime after it was tied in regulation.
As a writer, Bowden makes the reader feel like he's in the middle of the game. He makes you wish you had been able to witness this great game. You envy those who did. NFL Commissioner Bert Bell called the Colts-Giants sudden death overtime game, "The greatest day in the history of professional football."
While I thoroughly enjoyed the book, it's definitely a lightweight treatment of the subject. The book is 239, easy-to-read pages. When I finished the book, I wanted to read more about the game and its impact. I suspect many other readers will feel the same way.
 The Raymond Berry Biography in Disguise May 14, 2008
J. Stasny (Falls Church, Virginia United States)
5 out of 13 found this review helpful
What you have here is not so much a book about the game but rather some feather duster treatment of a few of the people who played in it ... and a whole lot about Raymond Berry which, combined with the Epilogue, constitute the only redeeming features of the book.
You will read about John Unitas but there are certainly better books about him. You will read about Sam Huff, but oddly in this volume you will not read a word about the 1960 documentary narrated by Walter Cronkite called "The Violent World of Sam Huff" which will tell you more about the player than anything you'll find between the pages of The Best Game Ever. You'll find out about the tenacious kid who took a lucky picture of the final score in overtime but who really cares? And you'll soak a little in the late 1950's nostalgia assuming you are interested in how many people watched television back then.
To tell the truth, if it weren't for the Epilogue featuring some transcribed conversations among Colt veterans this would be a 1.5 star book. And without the Berry story, there would be virtually no book at all. The author handles language well enough. He just didn't produce anything close to The Best Sports Book Ever.
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