Out Of The House That Ruth Built Emerges The Modern NFL: Giants vs. Colts, 1958

The first of back-to-back NFL Championships for Baltimore Colts coach Weeb Ewbank (center, suit) and players (left to right) Raymond Berry, Lenny Moore, and John Unitas came at Yankee Stadium in 1958. (Courtesy of the Babe Ruth Museum.)

 

As the crowd of 64,185 streamed into Yankee Stadium for the 2:00 kickoff on the afternoon of December 28, 1958, they were treated to comparatively balmy weather with the temperature at 47 with clear skies.1 Conditions seemed ideal for the National Football League championship matchup pitting the Western Division champion Baltimore Colts, an offensive powerhouse led by quarterback John Unitas and wide receiver Raymond Berry, against the Eastern Division champ New York Giants who boasted the league’s most feared defense, headed by middle linebacker Sam Huff.2

Though built for baseball, the Stadium had been hosting football games since 1923.3 In 1956, after the football Giants abandoned the Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium became their home field and it was the Eastern Division’s champion’s turn to host. The Giants christened their new home in spectacular fashion, routing the Chicago Bears 47-7 to win the NFL crown.4

For all the anticipation, the Giants-Colts game began as a comedy of errors, with the first quarter featuring three turnovers, a total doubled by halftime.5 Indeed, Baltimore’s first drive ended with Huff forcing a fumble while sacking Unitas, only to have the Colts return the favor a play later. Battling back and forth, the Colts threatened after a 60-yard completion from Unitas to Lenny Moore took them to the Giants’ 26, but the drive came up empty when Huff blocked Colts kicker Steve Myhra’s field-goal attempt.6

The Giants mounted a drive late in the first quarter but had to settle for Pat Summerall’s 36-yard field goal after a wide-open Alex Webster slipped trying to corral a pass from quarterback Charlie Conerly. Two fumbles by Giants running back Frank Gifford were turned into touchdowns by the Colts. The first was on a 2-yard run by Alan Ameche, and the other was on a 15-yard touchdown pass from Unitas to Berry, the culmination of a 15-play, 86-yard drive. The half ended with the Colts ahead 14-3.7

The quality of play improved significantly in the second half. After forcing the Giants to punt, the Colts started a drive from their own 41 and quickly marched down the field. Midway through the third quarter, they had first and goal on the Giants’ 4-yard line. With the game seemingly hanging in the balance – years later Gifford recalled, “We had to hold them. We didn’t have the offense to recover from a 21-3 deficit.” – the Giants defense went to work.8

After Giants defensive back Emlen Tunnell came seemingly out of nowhere to stop an Ameche sweep, a sneak by Unitas and another try by Ameche left the Colts still short of the goal line. On fourth and goal, Unitas called a trick play, an option pass. But when Ameche misunderstood the call and simply tried the sweep, he was wrapped up short of the goal line, while tight end Jim Mutscheller stood alone waiting for the pass that never came.9 The Giants defense had turned the tide.

With the momentum suddenly shifted, the Giants offense took a turn. With a third and 2 from their own 13, Conerly threw a pass to flanker Kyle Rote, who caught it in stride at the 35 and kept going. But as Rote was being dragged down on the Colts 45, he fumbled, only to have the trailing Webster pick up the bouncing ball and take it all the way to the 1-yard line, where he was forced out of bounds. The 86-yard play left the Giants poised to score their first touchdown – which they did two plays later with Mel Triplett scoring on a 1-yard run. Summerall’s extra point cut the Colts’ lead to 14-10.10

After a Colts three and out, the Giants opened the fourth quarter with Conerly hitting wide receiver Bob Schnelker on a 46-yard bomb that took the Giants to the Colts’ 15. That was followed by a pass to Gifford for a touchdown and the lead, 17-14. Pandemonium reigned.11

Behind for the first time since the first quarter, the Colts offense got to work, but the Giants defense held firm, stalling two short drives. Frustrated and still trailing, the Colts got the ball on their own 14-yard line with 1 minute and 56 seconds remaining.12

Now under the lights, with dropping temperature having left some spots on the field frozen, Unitas started with two incomplete passes, but on third down he connected with Moore for 11 yards and a first down. Although Unitas missed L.G. Dupre on his next attempt, he then proceeded to hit Berry on three consecutive passes – a 25-yarder to midfield, a 15-yarder that took them to the Giants 35, and a 22-yarder to the left sideline that gave the Colts first down on the Giants’ 13.13 The sequence became embedded in Colts lore. Defensive back Milt David recalled, “All the preparation I’d seen Johnny put in – now it was coming to fruition.”14 Strong safety Andy Nelson said simply, “That was the best pitch and catch I’d ever seen.”15 With seven seconds left, Myhra’s 19-yard field goal tied the game, 17-17.

After Don Maynard returned the ensuing kickoff to the 18, the Giants had time for only a single play before time ran out, the struggle ending in an unsatisfying tie – or so many of the players already heading to the locker room thought.16 But in fact, Commissioner Bert Bell had previously declared that if the championship game was tied at the end of regulation play, the teams would play a sudden-death overtime to determine the league champion.17 The tired players regrouped for the coin flip to determine which team got the ball to start the overtime period.

Unitas, standing in for Colts captain Gino Marchetti, who had broken his ankle in the fourth quarter, called tails. When it landed heads, the home crowd roared.18

After the kickoff for the unprecedented overtime resulted in a touchback, the Giants took possession on their own 20-yard line.19 The Colts defense held for a three and out, before Don Chandler’s 62-yard punt and Carl Taseff’s 1-yard return left the Colts to start on their own 20.20

Masterfully mixing his plays – an 11-yard run by Dupre, an incomplete pass attempt to Moore, a short gain by Dupre, and then an 8-yard pass to Ameche for the first down – Unitas put on a clinic, keeping the Giants constantly off-balance. Even when stopped, the Colts seemed in control. Years later a still frustrated Sam Huff recalled, “John had me psyched … I thought he could read my mind … because it seemed like the son of a bitch knew every defense I was in.”21

After a sack left the Colts on their own 37, Unitas hit Berry along the left sideline for 21. That was followed by a trap by Ameche up the middle that victimized Huff. After Dupre was held to no gain, Unitas again hit Berry, this time for 12, taking the Colts to the Giants’ 8 and a first down.22 Seeking to regroup, the Giants called time out. Then all at once, television sets across the land lost their picture. NBC had lost its cable connection.23

NBC technicians were able to fix the problem, and as their pictures returned, viewers saw the Colts lining up on the Giants’ 8. A plunge by Ameche netted 2 yards.24 Then Unitas surprised everyone by throwing a sideline pass to Mutscheller, who caught the ball on the 1 but slipped on the now frozen field, falling out of bounds before he could reach the end zone.25 From there, on third and goal, with 6:45 left in the first overtime period, Ameche plunged over the goal line for the game-winning touchdown.26

The Baltimore Colts were the NFL champions. Bedlam ensued. Fans charged onto the field tearing up chunks of the sod for souvenirs while battles over the pulled-down goal posts raged.27 An ecstatic Commissioner Bell spoke for many when he told New York Times reporter Louis Effrat that it was “the greatest game I have ever seen.”28

So it was that in Yankee Stadium, the “house that [Baltimore native Babe] Ruth built,” his hometown Colts had emerged triumphant, in the process jump-starting the elevation of the NFL into the front ranks of professional sports while making Johnny Unitas the first superstar quarterback of the modern era.

BILL PRUDEN has been an educator, primarily a teacher of American history and government and mostly at the high-school level, for almost 40 years. A SABR member for over two decades, he has contributed to both SABR’s BioProject and Games Project as well as some book projects. A lifelong baseball fan, he also loves to read, research, and write about American history of all kinds, passions undoubtedly fueled by the fact that as a 7-year-old, at only his second major-league game, he witnessed Roger Maris’s historic 61st home run.

 

NOTES

1 Mark Bowden, The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colt, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL (New York: Grove Press, 2008), 191-192.

2 Bowden, 14-15.

3 “Football Games at Yankee Stadium,” http://www.luckyshow.org/football/ys.htm.

4 Lou Sahadi, One Saturday in December: The 1958 NFL Championship Game and How It Changed Professional Football (Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press, 2008), 81.

5 Sahadi, 198-201.

6 Bowden, 152-154.

7 Bowden, 156-161.

8 Frank Gifford with Peter Richmond, The Glory Game: How the 1958 NFL Championship Game Changed Football Forever (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 177.

9 Sahadi, 170; Bowden, 8-10.

10 Sahadi, 171; Bowden, 16-18.

11 Sahadi, 172.

12 Louis Effrat, “Colts Beat Giants, Win in Overtime,” New York Times, December 29, 1958.

13 Sahadi, 205; Bowden, 183-185.

14 Gifford, 209.

15 Gifford, 209.

16 Bowden, 191-192.

17 Bowden, 193.

18 Bowden, 194; John F. Steadman, The Greatest Football Game Ever Played: When the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants Faced Sudden Death (Baltimore: Press Box Publishers, Inc., 1988), 41.

19 Bowden, 195, Sahadi, 201.

20 Bowden, 197; Sahadi, 206.

21 Bowden, 202.

22 Bowden, 198-203.

23 Bowden, 203.

24 Brian Cronin, “Sports Legend Revealed: Did NBC Send an Employee on the Field to Delay an NFL Title Game?” Los Angeles Times, July 28, 2010; Bowden, 206-207.

25 Bowden, 206-207.

26 Sahadi, 206.

27 Steadman, 44.

28 Bowden, 208.