NEWS
By Childs Walker | December 28, 2008
The image did not add up in Raymond Berry's mind. There he was, sharing a moment of purest fulfillment with his Baltimore Colts teammates as they left Yankee Stadium on Dec. 28, 1958. World champions! They could call themselves that after beating the New York Giants in a tense overtime before a huge national television audience. And yet, there stood National Football League commissioner Bert Bell, quietly weeping. "I didn't comprehend why, but the memory stuck with me," Berry said recently from his home in Tennessee.
NEWS
By Peter Schmuck | December 28, 2008
News item: The Ravens could clinch a playoff berth before they take the field for today's late-afternoon game against the Jacksonville Jaguars if the New England Patriots lose their 1 p.m. season finale in Buffalo. My take: That would be nice because there are several banged-up Ravens players who would look good relaxing on the bench all afternoon, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Related news item: Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi is expected to miss today's game against the Bills, and defensive end Richard Seymour is out. My take: Losing two key defensive players would make it that much tougher to win on the road, but I agree with John Harbaugh.
NEWS
By RICK MAESE | December 28, 2008
Fifty years ago, an undersized defensive back named Andy Nelson climbed into a car alongside a 25-year-old, fresh-faced quarterback. Was it a Pontiac? A Chevrolet? Tricky thing about time: Just as easily as it can help shape a legacy, it can fade a memory. Nelson and his friend drove together to Memorial Stadium, where they would catch a bus to the airport, where they would board a plane for New York, where they would make history just a couple of days later. If there were only a way to get into his head.
NEWS
By FREDERICK N. RASMUSSEN | December 28, 2008
Too bad we can't jump in the car today and drive to Johnny Unitas' Golden Arm restaurant in Rodgers Forge and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1958 championship game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants with a hearty meal and a couple of cold ones. But don't bother steering for the York Road Plaza restaurant. If you do, you'll only be disappointed. A Radio Shack electronics store sits where the fabled restaurant once stood. Unitas opened the restaurant in 1968 with defensive back Bobby Boyd and owned it for the next 20 years, until he sold it to Bill Grauel in 1988.
NEWS
By Bill Ordine | December 27, 2008
It matters not that their gaits are slowed and frames stooped, the result of ancient wounds and the passing of decades. These former Baltimore Colts - the 1958 Baltimore Colts - are arrested in the collective mind's eye of generations of football fans in the flower of their strength and swiftness and fortitude. And last night, some of them gathered once again as they did nearly 50 years ago at frozen Yankee Stadium, where they won the NFL championship, 23-17, in sudden-death overtime. But instead of preparing to take on the New York Football Giants - as their foes were often called back then - in a struggle none of them could have imagined would come to be known as "The Greatest Game Ever Played," these old Colts were assembled in the club level at M&T Bank Stadium in a warm spirit of fraternal bonhomie known only to those who have joined together in a great struggle.
NEWS
By Childs Walker | December 14, 2008
On Dec. 28, 1958, the NFL's best offense and defense, its finest quarterback, its best possession receiver and big-play threat, its most dominant defensive lineman and prototype offensive tackles, its best-rounded linebacker and its most promising assistant coaches all took the same field at Yankee Stadium. The championship game that resulted between the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts is widely known as "The Greatest Game Ever Played." It is most often remembered for the remarkable drives authored by John Unitas, for the NFL's first sudden-death overtime and for introducing professional football as a potent television product to millions of new viewers.
NEWS
By RAY FRAGER | December 14, 2008
I spoke to Art Donovan last week after seeing him having a good, old time with Michael Strahan in the ESPN special on the 1958 NFL title game, The Greatest Game Ever Played. Donovan said he told the gap-toothed former Giant: "With all your money, why don't you get another tooth?" Donovan also said he turned down an invitation to attend a screening of the documentary in New York because he was taking two of his grandchildren to Disney World. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.com/mediumwell)
NEWS
By RAY FRAGER | December 12, 2008
In a current country song, Jamey Johnson sings the refrain, "You should have seen it in color," referring to a grandfather's vivid memories of times past captured in black-and-white photographs. Like those old photos, most documents of the legendary Baltimore Colts-New York Giants 1958 NFL title game - the game that launched pro football into American sports ascendancy - have existed in black and white. But producers of ESPN's documentary The Greatest Game Ever Played (9 p.m. tomorrow)
NEWS
By RICK MAESE | November 15, 2008
Oh, the momentum the Ravens must be carrying into tomorrow's clash, right? "It's irrelevant," coach John Harbaugh insisted Monday. "Doesn't matter. We've got a road game this week playing the New York Giants." Well, at the very least, we can agree this is a big game, right? I mean, the Giants are the defending Super Bowl champs. They've lost just once this year. "Everybody can make out of any game what they want to make out of it," Harbaugh offered Wednesday. "It might be interesting for some people or some fans more than other fans, but nonetheless every single one of them counts the same."
NEWS
By Mike Klingaman | February 27, 2007
In a photo capturing the most famous moment of George Preas' football career, he's not even there. The picture, from 1958, shows Colts fullback Alan Ameche blasting through a hole for the winning touchdown in Baltimore's 23-17 sudden-death NFL championship victory. Preas, a lineman, helped blaze that trail - though he's missing from the famous photo, having already done the work. "That picture sums up George," teammate Alex Sandusky said. "He did a hell of a job for years and nobody knew it, except for the guys who played with him."