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Giants / Colts 58 Championship Running Thread

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Boom_70, Dec 13, 2008.

  1. JR

    JR Well-Known Member

    This is one time I'm pissed we don't get ESPN
     
  2. apeman33

    apeman33 Well-Known Member

    I liked the commentary in the early part of the show. Donovan with Strahan is gold and Moore and Berry are giving great insight.

    But in the OT, it's getting bogged down. But I think the idea is to give perspective on how important each play was. For instance, the Colts deciding not to kick the FG in OT because Mira wasn't a reliable kicker.

    (Or even better, later they say they they were so close, Mira would have had an impossible angle because the posts were on the goal line and the hashmarks were wider apart)
     
  3. Flying Headbutt

    Flying Headbutt Moderator Staff Member

    Thing is, they don't have the full game. They could only take bits and pieces. A lot of this came from Weeb Ewbank's personal game film collection.
     
  4. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    64,185 -- Official attendance of the game at Yankee Stadium.

    45 million -- Estimated combined radio and television audience.

    50 -- Cents an official game program cost a spectator. Collectors today pay hundreds of dollars for a program in good condition.

    10 -- Dollars for an upper box seat to attend the game.

    10,000 -- Average NFL salary in 1958. The highest paid players made between $15,000 and $20,000.

    39 -- Age of Giants quarterback Charley Conerly at time of game, the eldest player on either roster. Each year the Conerly Trophy is awarded by the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame to the best college football player in the state of Mississippi. Conerly is a native Mississippian and was an All-American at the University of Mississippi, as well as the 1948 NFL Rookie of the Year; two-time All-Pro in 1950 and 1956, and led the Giants to three NFL Championship games with one 47-7 win against the Chicago Bears in 1956 and the two losses to the Colts in 1958 and '59. Conerly also was the “Marlboro Man” in commercials while playing for the Giants. Before his death in 1996, Conerly owned a chain of shoe stores in the Mississippi Delta region.

    21 -- Age of Colts halfback/defensive back Johnny Sample, the youngest player on either roster. The 6-foot Sample (University of Maryland-Eastern Shore) was chosen by the Colts in the seventh round and the 79th pick overall in the 1958 NFL Draft. Sample appeared in all 12 games for the Colts in '58 with one rushing attempt and one interception return for 41 yards. Sample was traded to Pittsburgh after the 1960 season and ended his career with the New York Jets in 1968.

    381 -- League-leading total of points scored by the Colts in 1958 season (31.8 per game).

    183 -- League-leading fewest points allowed by the Giants in the 1958 season.

    243 -- Average weight of the Colts’ offensive line, compared to 244 average of the Giants’ defensive front five.

    9.6 -- Percentage of opponents' passes the Colts intercepted in 1958, the league best compared to the average of 6.2.

    3 1/2 -- Point spread of the game favoring the Colts.

    20 -- The yardage of Steve Myhra’s game-tying field goal to send the game into the first sudden-death overtime in NFL championship game history.

    0 -- The number of players on either team who had been previously informed of the possibility of playing a sudden-death overtime period in case of a tie at the end of regulation. It was the first overtime game in the history of the NFL Championship and there has not been another since. John Unitas was quoted later: “When the game ended in a tie, we were standing on the sidelines waiting to see what came next. All of a sudden, the officials came over and said, ‘Send the captain out. We’re going to flip a coin to see who will receive.’ That was the first we heard of the overtime period." The extension of the game allowed NBC to expand the broadcast into the large Sunday evening audience, increasing the number of people who witnessed the soon to be legendary ending.

    3 -- The number of minutes between the end of regulation time and the coin flip to begin the overtime period. New York won the coin toss and elected to receive.

    4 -- The numbers of yards the Giants gained on their first possession in overtime after winning the coin toss and electing to receive. The Giants punted and the Colts took possession on their own 14.

    12 -- The number of plays the Colts needed to take the ball 85 yards down to the Giants’ 1-yard line on their first possession in overtime.

    1 -- The number of Giants defensive players who touched Alan Ameche on his game-winning plunge into the end zone. The 5-foot-10 safety Jim Patton met Ameche at the goal line but had little chance to single-handedly stop the hard-charging 6-foot-1, 220-pound Ameche.

    12/178 -- The number of receptions and yards by Colts receiver Raymond Berry in the game. Berry’s 12 receptions remain a championship game record.

    361/187 -- Total game passing yards for the Colts’ Unitas and Giants’ Conerly.

    139/114 -- Total game rushing yards for the Colts and Giants.

    $4,718.77 -- The winning share the NFL awarded to each Colts player ($3,111.33 was awarded to each Giants player).

    $500 -- The amount Ameche received the evening of the game to appear on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

    30,000 -- The estimated number of celebrants that greeted the Colts when they returned from New York after winning the 1958 NFL Championship.

    7 -- The number of World War II veterans on the 1958 Colts and Giants rosters. Colts: defensive tackle Art Donovan, coach Weeb Ewbank, quarterback Dick Horn; defensive end/tackle Gino Marchetti. Giants: coach Jim Lee Howell, quarterback Conerly, defensive end Andy Robustelli.

    15 -- The number of future Hall of Fame players who participated on the field in the 1958 Championship Game. Colts -- Berry, Donovan, Gino Marchetti, Lenny Moore, Jim Parker, Unitas, Ewbank (coach). Giants -- Roosevelt Brown, Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, Don Maynard, Andy Robustelli, Emlen Tunnell, Vince Lombardi (offensive coordinator), Tom Landry (defensive coordinator). Two other future Hall of Fame members at this game were Giants owner Tim Mara and vice president Wellington Mara.

    3-0 -- The record Baltimore teams have in the championship game over the New York Giants (1958 -- Colts 23, Giants 17; 1959 -- Colts 31, Giants 16; 2000 -- Ravens 34, Giants 7).

    Sources: Pro Football Hall of Fame, The Baltimore Colts: By John Steadman, Atlantic Magazine Article & The Best Game Ever by Mark Bowden: Distant Replay, Forbes.com: The Business of Pro Football, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Baltimorecoltsmania.com, NFL.com.

    Issue 132: December 2008
     
  5. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    Damn, and I thought you knew all that off the top of your head. ;)
     
  6. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    Loved the Colts fans tearing down the goal posts in New York and carrying Ameche off the field. Classic stuff.
     
  7. Flying Headbutt

    Flying Headbutt Moderator Staff Member

    That game was played when my parents were just little kids. But I love stuff like this. I've got a few goosebumps now that it's all over. Incredibly well done.
     
  8. apeman33

    apeman33 Well-Known Member

    The only thing I would have changed:

    Anyone but Berman as the host. You know he only got it because ESPN pushed for it. I just don't know who I would have used. Maybe Brent Musberger.
     
  9. Blitz

    Blitz Active Member

    For all the ribbing ESPN takes on this board, it's productions like this that make them a valuable commodity within the sports biz.
    Great show.
     
  10. Clerk Typist

    Clerk Typist Guest

    The extension of the game allowed NBC to expand the broadcast into the large Sunday evening audience, increasing the number of people who witnessed the soon to be legendary ending.

    Really? One of the play-by-play guys says the overtime started at 4:35 p.m. in New York. The whole thing was probably over by 5. Prime time doesn't start until 7 p.m. ET on Sunday. Maybe it knocked Wild Kingdom off the air or something. And in New York, they saw what, a movie?
     
  11. terrier

    terrier Well-Known Member

    Perfect timing - I happen to be in the middle of reading "The Best Game Ever." Excellent read, though I'll still always wonder what Halberstam would've done with it.
    Still, there was some great new stuff - I don't recall seeing the reverse angle shots in the NFL's Greatest Games treatment of this one. I would've remembered Marchetti's leg bending in ugly fashion after Lipscomb landed on him.
    Give ESPN and NFL Films credit for allowing discussion of the gambling angle on OT. Maybe they listened to all the criticism after the Steelers-Chargers game.
    Uncle Artie's slowed a bit - IIRC, he's had some health issues, and he's gotta be well past 80. Still, it was great to see him again.
    I always get a little creeped out by colorization, though. It's funny - I've seen official films of previous NFL championship games that were shot in color (the clip they showed of the '56 game was not colorized - I saw that film on Classic years ago). Did the NFL even commission a film of the '58 title game, or did they let it lapse until Ed Sabol stepped up in '62?
     
  12. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    Three players from the game in the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.

    Conerly and the greatly underrated Jimmy Patton for the Giants, Raymond Brown for the Colts.

    Brown is still alive, or was a few minutes ago.
     
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