November 20, 1960, 60 years ago: The New York Giants and the Philadelphia Eagles, arch-rivals since the Eagles' founding in 1933, play at Yankee Stadium. The winner was probably going to win the NFL's Eastern Division and play in the NFL Championship Game, as the Giants had in 3 of the last 4 years. Since the hosting alternated between the East and West winners in those days, the winner would also host the title game.
And one of the flashiest New York athletes was Frank Gifford, Hall of Fame running back for the Giants in the 1950s. Until 1960, it never would have occurred to anyone to call Gifford "tough." What they called this handsome devil out of Bakersfield, California and the University of Southern California was "the Golden Boy." He was already the most popular football player in New York history, so much so that, in the off-season at Yankee Stadium, he got Mickey Mantle's locker.
Chuck Bednarik was tough. How tough was he? He came out of still mill country in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and served as a waist gunner on B-24 bomber in World War II. But he was also smart: He got into the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and the Ivy League doesn't give athletic scholarships.
He was a rookie on the Eagles' NFL Championship team of 1949, and played center and linebacker for them, even after the switch to two-platoon football. He was "the last of the 60-minute men." Of course, in those days, athletes were paid so little that it was necessarily to get off-season jobs. He sold concrete, and that, rather than his toughness, that earned him the nickname "Concrete Charley."
Both teams had toughness. But the Giants embraced flashiness, while the Eagles ignored it.
The Giants led 10-0 at the half, but blew it. In the 4th quarter, the Eagles' Jimmy Carr picked up a fumble and returned it 38 yards for a touchdown, making it 17-10 Eagles.
With the clock running out, George Shaw, filling in for injured quarterback Charlie Conerly, threw a pass toward Gifford at midfield. Gifford caught the pass, but Bednarik arrived at the same time, and he flattened Gifford, who fumbled. The Eagles recovered.
On the film, this doesn't look like an especially devastating hit. I've seen much worse. What made this the most famous hit in NFL history -- aside from the fact that it was in New York, and involved a New York team, and was seen by a national TV audience -- was how Chuck reacted.
The film shows him reacting to the fumble by jumping around and clapping his hands. Then he pumped his fist, and issued what became his catchphrase: "This fucking game is over!" Which, for all intents and purposes, it was. The final score was, indeed, 17-10 Eagles.
But it was the photograph that proved devastating. It showed Bednarik standing over Gifford, pumping his fist. Gifford is lying on the ground, motionless. Bednarik spent the last 54 years of his life explaining that he didn't even realize Gifford was motionless on the ground in front of him, that he was celebrating the Eagles wrapping up a big win, not the fact that he'd knocked Gifford out. He said he didn't even realize he'd knocked Gifford out.
Legend has it that Gifford was knocked out because, despite wearing a helmet, he hit his head on the frozen grass at Yankee Stadium. This couldn't be true: According to Pro-Football-Reference.com, it was 49 degrees at gametime -- not a particularly notable temperature for mid-November New York, and hardly cold enough to freeze the field.
Gifford was taken to the Giants' locker room. Also taken to the locker room for first aid was a security guard who had a heart attack. Frank's first wife, Maxine, didn't know this, and when she went down to the locker room to see Frank, she heard someone say, "He's dead" -- meaning the security guard. When the guard was wheeled out on a stretcher, with his face covered by a sheet, reporters saw this, and thought it was Gifford.
The rumor began to spread that Bednarik had killed him. And when the photo was seen in newspapers across the country the next day, Bednarik looked like a monster, celebrating his "kill."
It got worse. Bednarik went to see Gifford in the hospital the next day, and was told Gifford couldn't receive visitors. But a new rumor circulated, that Bednarik wouldn't see Gifford. It wasn't that he wouldn't, it was that he couldn't.
Gifford missed the rest of the season, and decided to retire at age 30. But he missed playing, and returned in 1962, switching to receiver for safety reasons. He played 3 more seasons and retired again, becoming one of football's greatest broadcasters.
Gifford always said he never held it against Bednarik. Bednarik said he was tired of people remembering him mainly for one thing. "It was always, 'Oh, you're the guy! You're the guy! You're the guy that got Frank Gifford!'" He was also tired of Howard Cosell, on Monday Night Football, seeing a hard hit, and turning to Gifford and saying, "Just like Chuck Bednarik blindsided you at Yankee Stadium, Giffaroo!"
"Blindsided, my fanny! It was a clean hit," he always said. And it was: Like the infamous Denis Potvin hit on Ulf Nilsson in 1979, or Scott Stevens leveling Eric Lindros in 2000, no penalty was called on it. (And, yes, this profane man would say, "fanny," not "ass." In America, "fanny" means rear end. In Britain, it means the other side, of a woman.)
Both men died in 2015. Bednarik had been dealing with dementia for a few years, almost certainly induced by all that head contact in football. Gifford's 3rd wife, entertainer Kathie Lee Gifford, had also begun to notice him slipping. He, too, was a victim of football-induced head trauma. And that would have been the case even if Bednarik had merely tackled him that day, rather than outright knocking him out.
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November 20, 1960 was a Sunday. These were the other NFL games played that day:
* The football version of the St. Louis Cardinals, who had been in Chicago until this season, beat the Washington Redskins, 26-14 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.
* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat their arch-rivals, the Cleveland Browns, 14-10 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.
* The Chicago Bears beat the Detroit Lions, 28-7 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.
* The Los Angeles Rams beat the Green Bay Packers, 33-31 at Milwaukee County Stadium.
* The San Francisco 49ers beat the Dallas Cowboys, 26-14 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The Cowboys, a 1st-year expansion team, went 0-11-1 that 1st season. Their only non-loss was a tie against the Giants at Yankee Stadium.
* Since there were now 13 teams in the NFL, one team had to have a bye week every week. This week, it was the Baltimore Colts.
This was the 1st season of the American Football League. These were their games on the day:
* The Houston Oilers beat the Denver Broncos, 20-10 at Jeppesen Stadium in Houston.
* The Buffalo Bills beat the Los Angeles Chargers, 32-3 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
* The Boston Patriots, the Dallas Texans, the New York Titans and the Oakland Raiders -- the teams now known as the New England Patriots, the Kansas City Chiefs, the New York Jets and the Las Vegas Raiders -- had irregular schedules, and did not play on November 20.
There were 2 games in the NBA. The Boston Celtics beat the Cincinnati Royals, 120-103 at the Cincinnati Gardens. And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Detroit Pistons, 135-131 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. Elgin Baylor scored 52 points for the Lakers.
And the entire NHL, the "Original Six," was in action. The New York Rangers lost to the Detroit Red Wings, 4-3 at the old Madison Square Garden. The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 3-2 at the Boston Garden. And the Montreal Canadiens and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a tie, 1-1 at the Chicago Stadium.
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