Fans of the Baltimore Colts will recognize today's date, December 28th, 2009 as the 51st anniversary of the Colts' sudden death win over the New York Giants in the game commonly referred to as the "Greatest Game Ever Played." Seventeen future Hall of Famers played or coached in that game and it is credited with putting the NFL on the American cultural map. Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, has chronicled that championship game and what it meant to American society in an excellent book entitled, appropriately enough, The Best Game Ever: Giants Vs. Colts, 1958, and The Birth of the Modern NFL.
Extremely well-written, Bowden not only takes the reader through that exciting contest, but also examines life in America before and after that game in wonderful detail. He describes, for example that the television shows,The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and Leave it to Beaver as "new suburban lifestyle" programs. However,
Just over the horizon was a decade of restless social, political, and cultural upheavel, but none of that was obvious yet. Americans had never been more affluent, and had never had more leisure. And pro football, which was about to catch hold, would just shoulder on through all this coming change, growing ever more popular and ever more rich. The audience and the league were on the cusp of an explosion that would quickly turn this era of pro football into a piece of a simpler past. It would be this game that would provide the spark.
Bowden's eye for detail is excellent. He comments, for example, on how the fact that the game was broadcast in black and white gave it an almost other-worldly appearance. Indeed, the first chapter is entitled "Football Noir." He even details the fascinating story of Neil Leifer, a 16 year old amateur photographer, who made his way into the stadium and took one of football's most historic photos, that of Alan Ameche plunging into the end zone for the winning score.
I highly recommend this book for any fan of football or of American cultural history.
It is an absolute must read for the many folks who, with so much time having passed, have begun to wonder if those spectral heroes we see in the black and white film, the ones with horseshoes on their helmets were real. Mark Bowden, gently, yet vividly reminds us that, that day 51years ago, when the Baltimore Colts became the Champions of the World, was real indeed.
That's The BALTIMORE Colts! No relation what so ever to those impostors out in the second rate town that host a car race every May.
Posted by: Albert Smith | December 30, 2009 at 02:46 PM