The greatest game still hurt somebody.
Football remembers a landmark. Giants fans also get to remember a lead, a last chance, and the championship that got away.
GEORGE GUNSHEFSKI · THE GRATEFUL HEAD2 min read · 1958 season- Game date
- December 28, 1958
- Regular season
- 9–3
- Where it happened
- Yankee Stadium, New York
They call it the Greatest Game Ever Played. Fine. Somebody still had to be the fan whose team lost it.
That was our side of the stadium.
The Colts became my second team growing up because of my grandfather. He admired Bert Jones and told me Johnny Unitas was the best quarterback he had ever seen. I went off and read everything I could about Unitas. That connection started with a conversation beside the television.
The 1958 championship helped make professional football a bigger part of American life. I can appreciate that and still want the Giants’ part told as more than the team standing across from Johnny Unitas.
They had already survived December.
Pat Summerall kicked a 49-yard field goal through the snow to beat Cleveland 13–10 in the regular-season finale. New York then beat Cleveland again, 10–0 in a tiebreak playoff, holding Jim Brown to eight rushing yards.
That is some work to do before you even get to the championship. The Giants finished the regular season 9–3, then earned the extra win that sent them to face Baltimore.
At Yankee Stadium, the Colts led 14–3. Touchdowns by Mel Triplett and Frank Gifford put the Giants ahead 17–14. They were close enough to bring the title home.
The game kept going.
Steve Myhra’s field goal with seven seconds left tied it. For the first time, an NFL championship would be settled in sudden-death overtime.
The Giants had the first possession and went three-and-out. Baltimore drove eighty yards, and Alan Ameche’s one-yard touchdown run ended the game.
My grandfather told me about those old Giants teams and their defense. I remember the pictures of fans holding pieces of fence and the chant: Defense! The feeling is familiar even across the years before I was born.
Those fans had seen their team come back and take the lead. They had every reason to care about the result as much as the game’s place in history.
So yes, keep the landmark. Keep the Giants in it, too. We came a few seconds and a few plays from a very different family story.
Where were you? Who did you watch with? There’s room for your Giants memory here.
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