Colts fan from Queens stumbles into childhood heroes
I had the privilege Wednesday night of watching ESPN's upcoming documentary on the 1958 NFL Championship Game at a Chelsea theater with Frank Gifford, Pat Summerall, Raymond Berry, Gino Marchetti, Lenny Moore, Jim Mutscheller, radio announcer Bob Wolff, Wolff's spotter for the game, Maury Povich, the New York Times' Dave Anderson, who covered the game, as well as others, including Aaron Ross and Justin Tuck, who like me were not at Yankee Stadium on Dec. 28, 1958.
But enough name-dropping and tag-cloud seeding. The best story of the night came from a guy you've never heard of, loyal Newsday reader Ed Hertz "like the rental car" of Bayside.
Mr. Hertz, now 68, lived in the Bronx in 1958 and was at the game, but was and is a huge Colts fan, and thus was and is thrilled with the events of 50 years ago.
He said his wife dragged him to Chelsea to see "Milk" Wednesday afternoon, and when he emerged he saw posters advertising the documentary screening so he hung around the lobby. Soon he was face-to-face with his boyhood heroes.
Cool. Click below for the story in his words.
"I grew up in the Bronx and was very influenced by Yankee Stadium. The first football games I ever went to were the old football Yankees, Gino [Marchetti] and Art [Donovan] were on the team. Buddy Young was my first football hero. The franchise moved to Baltimore [via Dallas], and I followed them and I attended the '58 playoff game. These were my heroes, the people I lived and died for.
"It cost $6. Four of us in our apartment building went to the game. We sat on the 40-yard-line, because that's the way the field was laid out in those days. We had the best seats in the house for six bucks.
"I came to the movies today. My wife dragged me to see 'Milk' and we walked out of the theater and saw the posters. So I hung around and figured I'd run into my heroes an hour later and sure enough, they're here.
"I had to see them. These are my heroes, the Colts, absolutely! I saw a football pass from Johnny Unitas to Buddy Young in an exhibition game in 1956. It was the year Unitas first started and Buddy Young retired. That was the connection between the Yankees to the Colts.
"[The 1958 game] was amazing. It made my life. It was the most exciting sports experience. To this day I travel to Indianapolis. I still follow the horseshoe. It's the most important thing.
"If you grew up in that neighborhood in the 1950s, the Stadium was the most important place in any kid's life. Mickey Mantle and Johnny U. were my heroes. It doesn't amaze me that 50 years later people still are talking about that game. It almost was like sports perfection, and I have seen great games. I follow the Colts, the Yankees World Series, but there's something about that game.
"The Colts had the lead, the Giants took it back, the whole controversy with Marchetti's broken leg and Gifford swears he had a first down, and the Colts were down, and it's third-and-10 and Unitas and Moore and that started the passes to Berry and into the end zone, I mean, when you're an 18-year-old kid, I mean, I'll never see anything better than that."
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