The Best Game Ever by Mark Bowden
An Evocative And Gripping Journalistic Description Of A Pivotal Sports Moment
The remarkable story of the 1958 NFL Championship game between the
Colts and the Giants-considered by many to be the greatest football game
ever played-from Mark Bowden, bestselling author of Black Hawk Down
On December 28, 1958, the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts met
under the lights of Yankee Stadium for that seasons NFL championship
game. Football, growing in popularity amidst Americas post-war economic
boom, was still greatly overshadowed by the countrys favored pastime,
baseball, but the 1958 championship proved to be the turning point for pro
football. In The Best Game Ever, Mark Bowden delivers a brilliant narrative
on the 1958 NFL Championship game, the story behind the key players in
that game, and the effect the contest had on the modern game of football
and todays NFL.

The championship, played on a freezing Sunday evening in front of 64,000
fans and millions of television viewers around the country, would go down
as the greatest in footballs history. On the field and roaming the sidelines
were 17 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
45 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 leagues best offense-the
Colts-versus its best defense-the Giants. And it was a contest between the
blue-collar Baltimore team, many of whom worked off-season jobs selling
liquor or insurance or taking shifts at Bethlehem Steel, versus the glamour
boys of the Giants squad who often appeared in magazine ads and TV
commercials and were seen around town at trendy spots like Toots Shoors
mingling with the likes of politicians, Broadway stars, even Ernest
Hemingway on occasion.
The Best Game Ever is a brilliant portrait of how a single game changed
the history of American sport. Published to coincide with the 50th
anniversary of the championship, it is destined to be a sports classic.
Personal Review: The Best Game Ever by Mark Bowden
Appropriately dedicated to David Halberstam, "The Best Game Ever:
Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL" seamlessly
blends a gripping journalistic description of the thrilling National Football
League championship game with riveting personal stories of participants
and witnesses. Author Mark Bowen clearly outlines the background and
significance of the contest; he does so with both admiration and
considerable affection for the men who fought on the semi-frozen Yankee
Stadium turf that late December afternoon and evening. If Bowen extols
the performance of the favored Giants, he reserves his greatest warmth for
the underdog Baltimore Colts. Seventeen members of the NFL Hall of
Fame participated in the contest, "the greatest concentration of football
talent ever assembled for a single game."
Bowen provides compelling portraits of some of the sport's iconic figures:
Vince Lombardi, Sam Huff, Tom Landry, Frank Gifford, Art "Fatso"
Donovan, Lenny Moore and Johnny Unitas. However, Raymond Berry, the
self-made wide receiver for the Colts holds a special place in Bowen's
heart. Undersized and undervalued, Berry quietly revolutionized the sport
with his meticulous preparation and unceasing quest for information. As
the Colts marched down the field for the winning touchdown, the public
address announcer's repetitious statement, "Unitas to Berry," exemplified
two emerging stars summoning peak performances during moments of
unbearable pressure.

"The Best Game Ever" contains marvelous anecdotes about the game and
its witnesses. Bowen informs us that some of the players did not know
about the "sudden death" rule, designed to produce a winner in a
championship game. He gives life to the most famous photograph of the
day, one taken by a teenager who gained access to an end-zone
perspective by pushing wheelchair-bound veterans to one end of the field.
As well, Bowen expertly analyzes the nascent confluence of television and
football, a relationship nurtured by prescient NFL commissioner Bert Bell.
Ardent fans of professional football and students of American culture will
find something to cherish in "The Best Game Ever."
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