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The Best Game Ever
- Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
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Publisher's summary
On the field and roaming the sidelines were 17 future Hall of Famers, including Colts stars Johnny Unitas, Raymond Berry, and Gino Marchetti, and Giants greats Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, and assistant coaches Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry.
Played on a freezing Sunday evening in front of 64,000 fans and an estimated 45 million television viewers around the country - at that time the largest crowd to have ever watched a football game - the championship would become the first sudden-death contest in NFL history. With two minutes left in regulation, Baltimore had possession deep in its own territory, and the ball in the hands of the still unproven quarterback Johnny Unitas.
The Best Game Ever is a brilliant portrait of how a single game changed the history of American sports. Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the championship, it is destined to be a sports classic.
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Story
They were America's Team - the high-priced, high-glamour, high-flying Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s, who won three Super Bowls and made as many headlines off the field as on it. Led by Emmitt Smith, the charismatic Deion "Prime Time" Sanders, and Hall of Famers Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin, the Cowboys rank among the greatest of all NFL dynasties.
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This is a football book right?
- By Aaron on 12-07-09
By: Jeff Pearlman
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Sweetness
- The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 18 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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At five feet ten inches tall, running back Walter Payton was not the largest player in the NFL, but he developed a larger-than-life reputation for his strength, speed, and grit. Nicknamed “Sweetness” during his college football days, he became the NFL’s all-time leader in rushing and all-purpose yards, capturing the hearts of fans in his adopted Chicago.
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Honest Accounting Of A Fascinating Life
- By RevInTampa on 08-19-15
By: Jeff Pearlman
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The Missing Ring
- How Bear Bryant and the 1966 Alabama Crimson Tide Were Denied College Football's Most Elusive Prize
- By: Keith Dunnavant
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Very few institutions in American sports can match the enduring excellence of the University of Alabama football program. Across a wide swath of the last century, the tradition-rich Crimson Tide has claimed twelve national championships, captured 25 conference titles, finished 34 times among the country's top ten, and played in 53 bowl games.
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Fantastic
- By John Rogers on 03-29-18
By: Keith Dunnavant
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When the Game Stands Tall
- The Story of the De La Salle Spartans and Football's Longest Winning Streak
- By: Neil Hayes
- Narrated by: J. P. Linton
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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By 2002, The Streak - a historic 13-year run of consecutive wins by the Spartans, a high-school football team from Concord, California, that couldn't be beat - was still going strong. In this revised edition of When the Game Stands Tall, author Neil Hayes, who had unrestricted access to the De La Salle team, writes from the inside about the games, the players, and their visionary coach, Bob Ladouceur, who managed to amass the highest winning percentage in football history (.995) through standing for something greater than winning.
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Great story and message but PAINFULLY detailed
- By AudioAddict on 03-21-15
By: Neil Hayes
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Their Life's Work
- The Brotherhood of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers
- By: Gary M. Pomerantz
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 16 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s won an unprecedented and unmatched four Super Bowls in six years. A dozen of those Steelers players, coaches, and executives have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and three decades later their names echo in popular memory: "Mean" Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Mike Webster, Jack Lambert, Lynn Swann, and John Stallworth.
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Great Book
- By cap on 07-18-18
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The Game: Harvard, Yale, and America in 1968
- By: George Howe Colt
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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On November 23, 1968, near the end of a turbulent and memorable year, there was a football game that would also prove turbulent and memorable: the season-ending clash between Harvard and Yale. Both teams entered undefeated and, technically at least, came out undefeated. The final score was 29-29. To some of the players on the field, it was a triumph; to others a tragedy. George Howe Colt’s The Game is the story of that iconic American year, as seen through the young men who lived it and were changed by it.
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More than a game
- By Hebern on 11-05-18
By: George Howe Colt
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Undefeated
- Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team
- By: Steve Sheinkin
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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When superstar athlete Jim Thorpe and football legend Pop Warner met in 1904 at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, they forged one of the winningest teams in American football history. Called "the team that invented football", they took on the best opponents of their day, defeating much more privileged schools such as Harvard and Army in a series of breathtakingly close calls, genius plays, and bone-crushing hard work.
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I don't even like sports.
- By Melmonie on 03-12-18
By: Steve Sheinkin
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Best of Rivals
- Joe Montana, Steve Young, and the Inside Story Behind the NFL's Greatest Quarterback Controversy
- By: Adam Lazarus
- Narrated by: James Conlan
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In this revealing, in-depth look at the NFL's greatest quarterback controversy, Adam Lazarus takes listeners into the locker room and inside the huddle to deliver the real story behind the rivalry - when Joe Montana and Steve Young battled on and off the field and forged one of the finest football dynasties of all time. From 1987 to 1994, the two future Hall of Famers spurred each other on to remarkable heights, including three Super Bowl wins and four MVP awards, setting new standards for quarterback excellence.
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Excellent backstory of Montana and Young
- By Jason on 04-28-15
By: Adam Lazarus
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Pistol
- The Life of Pete Maravich
- By: Mark Kriegel
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Pistol is more than the biography of a ballplayer. It's the stuff of classic novels: the story of a boy transformed by his father's dream and the cost of that dream. Even as Pete Maravich became Pistol Pete, a basketball icon for baby boomers, all the Maraviches paid a price. Now acclaimed author Mark Kriegel has brilliantly captured the saga of an American family: its rise, its apparent ruin, and, finally, its redemption.
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Extremely Good!
- By steve on 12-12-12
By: Mark Kriegel
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Tales from the San Francisco 49ers Sideline
- A Collection of the Greatest 49ers Stories Ever Told
- By: Matt Maiocco, Roger Craig
- Narrated by: David Crommett
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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The San Francisco 49ers shaped the NFL throughout the 1980s with their unique blend of precision, panache, and preparation. Three decades later, NFL teams are still copying the system and the methods that made the 49ers unlike any other organization in professional sports. Now fans of this dynamic franchise will relive all the action and thrills of 49ers football through the eyes of one of the greatest San Francisco legends of all time: Roger Craig.
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Boring!
- By JayMK on 05-14-24
By: Matt Maiocco, and others
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The Boys of Winter
- The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team
- By: Wayne Coffey
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Once upon a time, they taught us to believe. They were the 1980 US Olympic hockey team, a blue-collar bunch led by an unconventional coach, and they engineered perhaps the greatest sports moment of the 20th century. Their "Miracle on Ice" has become a national fairy tale, but the real Cinderella story is even more remarkable. It is a legacy of hope, hard work, and homegrown triumph. It is a chronicle of everyday heroes who just wanted to play hockey happily ever after.
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Great, but...
- By S. B. G. on 02-13-18
By: Wayne Coffey
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The Perfect Pass
- American Genius and the Reinvention of Football
- By: S. C. Gwynne
- Narrated by: Santino Fontana
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times best-selling, award-winning historian S. C. Gwynne tells the incredible story of how Hal Mumme and Mike Leach - two unknown coaches who revolutionized American football in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s - changed the way the game is played at every level, from high school to the NFL. Hal Mumme is one of a handful of authentic offensive geniuses in the history of American football. In 2015 ESPN Magazine, the nation's leading sports magazine, called him the single most influential football coach in the last quarter century.
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The Perfect Pass
- By Little Pecan on 09-29-16
By: S. C. Gwynne
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Madden
- A Biography
- By: Bryan Burwell
- Narrated by: Mark Moseley
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Several years after his playing career was cut short by injury before it had a chance to really begin, John Madden was hired as an assistant coach by the Oakland Raiders, one of professional football's most iconoclastic franchises. Two years later he was named the team's head coach and proceeded to lead the Raiders to five championship games in his first seven seasons. Following years of heartbreaking losses in some of history's most memorable games.
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Essential For Raider And Madden Fans
- By MovieGuy on 03-08-16
By: Bryan Burwell
What listeners say about The Best Game Ever
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sam Fachinglesse
- 09-29-22
A great retelling of a great game
The book was written by a true football fan. But as a life long Giants fan I was hoping Giff got that first down and Connorly made the TD pass. The performance was equal to the writing. It brought back some wonderful memories.
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- Kathy
- 08-10-08
Great Find
This is a great book even if you know nothing about football or outright hate the game. The author does a wonderful job of telling the story of a history-making contest. He liberally sprinkles the story with tidbits that surprise the listener -- little things that stay with you. I never heard of Raymond Barry before but the fact that he only had one fumble in 13 years of pro-play is extraordinary. I didn't realize Landry and Lombardi were coaches for the same team! Who knew? Two legendary men working for the same team --- and they LOST ?!?!? In a sudden death overtime??? And the TV broadcast almost lost the last play??? What are the odds?
I hope the Mr. Bowden has more sports stories to tell.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- R. Barry
- 06-17-08
Great story -- well told
If this title sounds remotely interesting to you, you're gonna love the book. Bowden has a great story to tell and does a terrific job, with lots of background information that adds considerably to the experience. Just one complaint keeps me from giving the audiobook 5 stars: the narrator, who otherwise does a good job, mispronounces many of the key participants' names, over and over and over again! How hard would it have been to get them right -- one call to the NFL office? Hey, he did get Jim Brown and Tom Landry right, and if you're young enough you'll never know the difference. Still and all, Bowden has you right there with some of the game's greatest in a truly historic and dramatic game. This is a treat not to be missed by real football fans.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- McRaleigh
- 09-11-08
The Best Game Ever
Wonderful. I am old enough to remember the game. But I did not all of the personal stories of the participants and their management. Well done.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- M. Taussig
- 08-03-08
Good History of Pro Football Legends
Bowden does a nice job of providing backgrounds for this interesting cast of owners, coaches and players. When I realized what an amazing group of people were involved in this game, on both sides, I understand why it was a pivotal event in sports history. The game play narration and timeline were well done. I have more respect for the teams talent and coaching after listening to this book.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- James
- 11-17-08
The Best Game Ever
Great book and very easy listen. If you like football and know anything about the history of the game you will love this
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1 person found this helpful
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- Matthew Toffolo
- 11-28-22
Love this book
Read this novel multiple times and just listened to the audible version. A thematic about the rise of America, with the issues of racism, and violence holding it back.
Raymond Berry is the main character of the novel. The person with limited physical gifts with terrific eye sight. But he became one of the greatest NFL stars of that era. How does this happen? Read the book
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- Art
- 07-02-08
Good True story
After listening to this book, I am getting two more books by the author, Mark Bowden. I really liked the interviews after the completion of the story.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Robert Jones
- 12-17-09
Very Interesting if you like NFL Football at all!
I'm an NFL football fan, and I try to watch 2 to 3 NFL games a week. This book sounded remotely interesting, and since I had never read a book about sports, I figured "Why Not?". This audiobook was fantastic. It talked about the famous 1958 game with the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts. Honestly I didn't really think I cared about that game, but after hearing this book, I realized how big of an impact to the NFL it had. I also learned a lot about the modern day NFL, as well as about some of the old timers like Sumerall and Gifford. I was very happy I bought it, and have recommended it to all my friends!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Randall
- 10-04-09
A feel good book for more than jocks
The book started out slow as the characters were setup. But I found myself not wanting to get out of the car at the end of a day as I was listening to this book. As usual in Mark Bowden's books the characters become so real that you feel you are there.
As someone that grew up in the 60's this really brought back a lot of memories. I would recommend it.
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