false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1213131524m/3151107.jpg 3151107 4 <DIV>On December 28, 1958, the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts met under the lights of Yankee Stadium for the NFL Championship game. Football, growing in popularity amid America&#8217;s postwar economic boom, was still greatly overshadowed by the country&#8217;s favored pastime, baseball, but the 1958 championship proved to be the turning point for pro football. In <I>The Best Game Ever, </I>Mark Bowden delivers a brilliant narrative on the key players in that face-off, and the effect the contest had on the modern game of football and today&#8217;s NFL.<BR><BR>The championship, played on a freezing Sunday evening in front of sixty-four thousand fans in attendance and millions of television viewers around the country, would be remembered as the greatest in football history. On the field and roaming the sidelines were seventeen 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 forty-five million viewers&#8212;at that time the largest crowd to have ever watched a football game&#8212;tuned in to see what would become the first sudden-death contest in NFL history. It was a battle of the league&#8217;s best offense &#8212; the Colts&#8212;versus its best defense &#8212; the Giants. And it was a contest between the blue-collar Baltimore team versus the glamour boys of the Giants squad. <BR><BR><I>The Best Game Ever </I>is a brilliant portrait of how a single game changed the history of American sport. Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the championship, it is destined to be a sports classic.</DIV> 3182643 5 5 2008 The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL total:68|5:11|4:33|3:21|2:3|1:0| 68 256 113 23 4 1 false false Wed Sep 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 03 02:47:47 -0700 2008 Thu Sep 25 06:09:12 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Dec 29 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 30 20:27:11 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 30 20:28:48 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Apr 30 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 30 12:57:40 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 30 12:58:25 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Mar 08 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 09 04:34:37 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 09 04:42:07 -0700 2009
This one game had already had at least one book written about it some years ago and on the library new books' shelf there was a newish book about this game by Frank Gifford, who played in it. (I'm not going to read Gifford's book ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Oct 05 20:32:50 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 09 13:01:07 -0700 2009
The author does a wonderful job of telling the story of a history-making contest. He liberally sprinkles the story with tidbits that surprise the listener -- little things that stay with you.

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Bowden is a gifted nar...more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 07 19:19:09 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 14 17:58:10 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Oct 13 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 14 07:15:57 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 14 07:22:34 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Sep 14 08:09:04 -0700 2008 Sun Oct 12 07:41:56 -0700 2008
Subtitled “Giants Vs Colts, 1958, and the birth of the Modern NFL,” this book is all that and then some. Like his previous effort Black Hawk Down, Bowden pulls together a number of different but related threads and weaves a cliffhanger.

...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 12 08:38:49 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 12 08:43:20 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jan 09 14:52:39 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 09 14:56:54 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Feb 18 08:29:10 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 18 08:33:38 -0800 2009 Mark Bowden is a compelling writer but trying to convince the reader that football game being described is heartstoppingly exciting is just very hard to do. Better done as a YouTube video with 80's jock ...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jan 12 13:53:23 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 12 13:56:29 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Mon Oct 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 28 22:04:02 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 05 17:31:05 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Wed Dec 17 07:25:12 -0800 2008 Thu Jun 04 13:49:51 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jun 29 16:49:53 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 22 16:46:26 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 29 16:49:53 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Wed Nov 26 09:33:48 -0800 2008 Wed Nov 26 09:34:13 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 29 08:38:16 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 29 08:45:42 -0700 2008 1 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jul 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue May 12 16:13:06 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 19:19:41 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=3151107