“As the sun went down over Yankee Stadium, a series of thunderclap roars filled the sky, and the crowd surged forward, raucous and intent. The arc lights shone down on the field, highlighting the condensation floating above the surface, shimmering off the dark blue helmets of the New York Giants, and bathing the while uniforms of the Baltimore Colts in an ethereal glow.” (America’s Game, MacCambridge)
MacCambridge highlights this moment in the forward to his book because it was the day that millions of Americans discovered their love of football, propelling it past baseball to become the countries favorite sport, something almost no one saw coming. Baseball had been the only relevant, televised, nationally loved sport in America’s short history. This all changed the afternoon of December 28th, 1958
The Baltimore Colts travelled to New York to take on Giants for the NFL Championship game. The Giants were the fan favorite, but Las Vegas predicted the Colts to win by a hair.
The teams took the field on the 20-degree day, with wind chills feeling like 7 degrees. This year the Championship game would be televised for fans across the nation, though no one predicted anything close to the 44 million (over a fourth of the US population) that tuned in.
The game was a low–scoring slog, granted most games were through the 1950’s and 60’s. The Colts found themselves down three late in the fourth quarter, needing to drive almost sixty yards down the field to tie the game with a field goal.
The Colts team captain, Gino Marchetti, was sidelined late with an ankle injury. He tried to return to the game, but something was clearly broken. Even in the cold, he fought off the medical staff trying to take him to the locker room, wrapping a blanket around his ankle and watching his team from his stretcher on the sidelines.
Colts QB Johnny Unitas drove them down the field with relative ease, giving them an opportunity to kick a field goal, tying the game 16-16 with zeroes on the clock. Today, it is clear that a tie to end a game results in overtime, but for many players, coaches, and most television viewers, the game was thought to be over.
Players began shaking hands and heading to their sidelines, when league officials came out and said according to a rule added a few years before, championships could no longer end in ties. TV viewers excitedly refocused on their televisions, some having already turned them off, as teams prepared for the coin flip. The referee provided the only rule to overtime. “First team to score wins.”
The Giants celebrated when they won the coin toss, but lost yards on three consecutive plays and were forced to punt. With America watching, Johnny Unitas led his team all the way to the Giants 10–yard line, when suddenly – static. The rowdy fans had managed to accidentally disconnect the only cable broadcasting the game to the nation.
Few people in the stadium knew that the rest of the country was on standby. Unitas found his tight end on the right sideline, pushed out of bounds just short of the endzone. After calling a timeout, both teams huddled up to plan their next play, when suddenly a smiling and drunken fan stormed the field, evading security for most of a minute before getting tackled right next to the Colts huddle. He was escorted off the field and into the security office.
The TV cables were re-connected just in time to see Colts’ running back Alan Ameche plow forward and across the goal line, giving the Colts their first championship win.
It was not discovered until years later, that the drunken fan was a stone-sober NBC executive who had been working on the sidelines. Seeing the cable disconnected, and the company’s reputation on the line, he took to the field. His antics gave NBC just enough time to fix the cable, only missing one play, and allowing 44 million people to see Ameche dive forward for the win.
The thrill of an overtime championship has only happened once since that day, almost a full half century later, when Tom Brady and the Patriots came back from being down 28-3 in the third quarter to beat the Falcons in 2016.
