The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL

There were lots of inside things in the book. I greatly enjoyed it. It also arrived very prompt.

Bowden always delivers. This is a quick read of the '58 NFL Championship Game. It's like watching a documentary of the game on ESPN Classic. A little game action then switch to a little background on some of the colorful personalities of the GIANTS or COLTS. All in all it delivers and entertains. I'm too young to have seen the game but I could picture my dad(a big Colts fan) cheering on Johnny Unitas! The names of the players, owners and coaches are legendary, all in all 17 of them from this game would make the NFL Hall of Fame. I really enjoyed some of the locker room stories between the players no doubt the stories have grown in stature over the years as has this game and the NFL. Highly recommended.

Fine writing, excellent content, interesting insight by Bowden make the book a great read for all fans of football interested in the most exciting game of football ever played, but an especially great read for fans of the old Baltimore Colts.

The Best Game Ever brought back to life many of the characters I grew up watching on TV when I was a young boy, Johnny Unitas, Raymond Berry, Frank Gifford, Vince Lombardi, Tom Landry, the list goes on. The book is as compelling as I'm sure the game must have been and after reading it you come away with a better appreciation of the roots of America's new favorite pass-time. Highly recommended!

Mark Bowden has crafted a terrific narrative of the THE GAME, the one that changed everything. He places the weight and the credit where it belongs and explains how each major event unfolded. Mainly he provides background and insight into a group of extraordinary men and how everything came together at just exactly the right moment and in exactly the right place. He contrasts the glamorous, endorsement contract lives of many of the Giant players with the hardscrabble, sooty backwater of neighborhood Baltimore where the Colts lived and worked.

He explains the pivotal plays in the game and how early unsuccessful plays actually set up later successes. He describes the crowd, a significant part of which rooted for the Colts. Finally, he covers the personalities behind the legends throughout the book, delving into the background of each critical player and coach, right down to Frank Gifford's whining which continues to this day. This is a must read for anyone interested in how the NFL came to be.