Sports lore speaks of professional football coming of age on Dec. 28, 1958, that windy Sunday at Yankee Stadium when the Baltimore Colts defeated the New York Giants 23-17 in overtime to capture the National Football League championship. The “Greatest Game Ever Played,” transfixed millions of television viewers and set the NFL on course to becoming the nation’s most popular sport.
But it was in the early 1960s when the NFL truly began to sizzle, thanks to the Green Bay Packers of coach Vince Lombardi and the Giants of quarterback Y.A. Tittle, who died Sunday night in Atherton, Calif.