Berry’s Reception Left This Player in a Huff

Forty-one years later, Sam Huff is visited by the same nightmare.

It’s 1958, back in Yankee Stadium on a cold afternoon, his New York Giants are battling the Baltimore Colts for the NFL title, the game to which all other “great” NFL games are still compared.

A second-quarter pass by Johnny Unitas is sailing toward Huff’s head and then as now, Huff’s mind tells him, “Bat it down! Get a hand on it!”

But he can’t. The pass, on third and four, at New York’s 13, goes right by Huff’s head and is caught by Raymond Berry in the end zone.

The score was tied, 17-17, at the end of regulation. In overtime, the Colts’ Alan Ameche scored on a one-yard plunge and Baltimore won what may still be pro football’s greatest game, played before 64,185.

In a 1998 interview with The Times, middle linebacker Huff recalled the second-quarter Baltimore touchdown:

“I played my position perfectly. I was positioned perfectly. But I had some kind of hitch in my shoulder pads and I couldn’t get my arm up. The ball went right by my ear. If I knock that ball down, we win.”

Berry caught 12 passes for 176 yards that day, but Huff said the difference was Berry’s quarterback.

“Forget Raymond Berry,” he said.

“We lost the game because the Colts had Johnny Unitas and we didn’t.”

Unitas completed 26 of 40 passes for 322 yards. His play in Baltimore’s late-game rally to get the tie with a 20-yard field goal by Steve Myhra with seven seconds left, and also the 80-yard winning drive in overtime have been called two of the game’s great demonstrations of quarterbacking.

In the third quarter, trailing, 14-3, Baltimore reached the New York one-yard line but Ameche was stopped at the five by Cliff Livingston. The emotionally charged Giants then went 95 yards for a score, the big play in the drive a pass from Charlie Conerly to Kyle Rote that gained 62 yards.

Rote fumbled at the Colt 25, but teammate Alex Webster picked up the loose ball and ran to the Colt one.

On the winning 80-yard drive, Unitas completed four passes for 46 yards.

Also on this date: In 1979, in their first meeting as rookie professionals, Magic Johnson’s Lakers beat Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics, 123-105. Johnson outscored Bird, 23-16. . . . In 1992, former major league pitcher Sal Maglie died at 75. He pitched in three World Series and had a 119-62 record.

In 1944, Maurice Richard of the Montreal Canadiens set an NHL single-game record with five goals and three assists. . . . In 1975, with 24 seconds left in an NFL division playoff game, Dallas’ Roger Staubach threw a desperation, 50-yard touchdown pass to Drew Pearson, beating the Vikings in Minnesota, 17-14.