As Raymond Berry left Yankee Stadium on Dec. 28, 1958, he saw NFL commissioner Bert Bell with tears in his eyes.

It took decades, Berry says now, to realize why.

Berry was a star in what is known today as "The Greatest Game Ever Played," the Baltimore Colts' 23-17 victory over the New York Giants for the NFL championship on Alan Ameche's 1-yard run 8 minutes and 15 seconds into the first-ever overtime. In the euphoria of the moment, Berry didn't have time to think of long-term ramifications.

Bell saw them immediately. Though he was to die the next October, the commissioner realized the boost that thrilling game could give a league he had run since 1946 at the midlevel of American sports. So did Roone Arledge and Lamar Hunt, two men who helped turn the NFL into a colossus.

Hunt was one of roughly 50 million Americans watching the game on NBC, a record number for a pro football game in those early days of television. He instantly grasped the potential for a sport with just 12 teams in 11 cities (Chicago had two). Two years later, he and a group of other millionaires founded the American Football League.

Arledge, then the 27-year-old producer of a puppet show on NBC, recognized football's television appeal as he moved up the network food chain. As president of ABC Sports 12 years later, he took on Pete Rozelle's "Monday Night Football" project when the other networks had turned it down.

The players were the last to understand what they'd been a part of.

"Most of us just wanted to get out of town after a long season," says Frank Gifford, who parlayed his stardom with the Giants into announcing jobs on, among other shows, "Monday Night Football."

"I lived in New York, so I just went back to my hotel. But my teammates were thinking about was loading up the cars and going back to their homes and jobs."

Jobs? In those days, NFL salaries were relatively small and so were title game shares — each Colt earned $4,718,77 and each Giant $3,111.33. So from January through July, NFL players were car salesmen, accountants, gym teachers, businessmen, whatever.

The "Greatest Game" upped the ante.

Now, as the 50th anniversary of the game approaches, it is being celebrated by the league, by two new books — one by Gifford — and even an ESPN film.

The game wasn't the prettiest, but it had excitement and star power. It featured 17 future Hall of Famers: 12 players, three coaches, Giants owner Tim Mara and his son and successor, Wellington.

The game turned John Unitas into one of America's best-known sports heroes. It was Unitas who led the tying drive in regulation and the final touchdown drive in OT. Not only did Unitas call all the Baltimore plays (quarterbacks mostly did in the those days), he went 26-of-40 for 361 yards. Twelve of those passes went to Berry, who gained 178 yards.

The Giants coaching staff featured two future icons of the game: Vince Lombardi on offense and Tom Landry on defense. The head coach, Jim Lee Howell, was a caretaker who turned almost all decisions over to the aides who would win Super Bowls in Green Bay and Dallas.

There were 64,185 fans in Yankee Stadium on Dec. 28, not even a sellout — despite a healthy contingent of Colts fans who had made the four-hour train journey up from Baltimore.

After the turnover-plagued start, Unitas hit Moore for 60 yards, setting up the Colts at the New York 25.

But Steve Myhra, who had made just four of 10 field goals in the regular season, missed a 32-yard field goal and then had one blocked by Sam Huff after the Giants were offside on the first attempt.

On the next drive, Frank Gifford's 38-yard run set up Pat Summerall's 36-yard field goal to give the Giants a 3-0 lead with 2:02 left in the first quarter.

For most of the next two periods, Baltimore dominated.

Gifford's fumble at his 18 set up Baltimore's first TD, a 2-yard run by Alan Ameche.

After Jackie Simpson fumbled Don Chandler's punt to give the Giants the ball at the Colts 10, Gifford gave it right back, Don Joyce recovering at the 14. "Not my greatest game," Gifford says now. "I fumbled going out and I fumbled going in."

Unitas then drove Baltimore 86 yards, finding Berry from 15 yards and the Colts led 14-3 at the half.

Baltimore seemed ready to put the game away midway through the third quarter, driving to a first down at the Giants 3.

The Colts were stuffed on three straight plays, then went for it on fourth-and-goal from the 1. Unitas called a halfback pass by Ameche, who was to toss the ball to Jim Mutscheller.

The pass call was prefaced by a "P" when Unitas called it. Ameche didn't hear that and was buried at the 5 by linebacker Cliff Livingston while Mutscheller stood alone in the end zone.

That awakened the Giants.

Two plays later, Charley Conerly found Kyle Rote behind the Baltimore secondary. He raced to the Colts 25, where Andy Nelson knocked the ball loose. But New York's Alex Webster scooped it up and took it to the 1, setting up Mel Triplett's TD run that made it 14-10.

On New York's next possession, the Giants took a 17-14 lead on a 15-yard Conerly-to-Gifford pass that followed passes of 17 and 46 yards to Bob Schnelker. The stadium rocked.

The score stayed that way deep into the final period.

With 2:40 left, the Giants had a third-and-4 from their 40 and Gifford swept right, diving for the first-down marker. Marchetti pulled him down and 6-foot-6, 285-pound Gene "Big Daddy" Lipscomb, landed on Marchetti's ankle, breaking it. As Marchetti was treated and taken off the field — he lay on a stretcher on the sideline to watch the finish — the ball lay where Gifford had left it. Then referee Ron Gibbs picked it up and spotted it several inches back, just short of a first down.

So New York punted and Unitas and Berry put on a show that made the game into the "Greatest Game."

Starting from his 14, Unitas hit Moore for 11 yards, then Berry for 25, 15, and 22. On came Myhra, who hit from 19 with 7 seconds left as the Colts and their fans held their breath.

Overtime.

"We really didn't know what to do," Berry says. "We'd never played it. Nobody had ever played it. Nobody really knew what came next."

What came next was a coin flip. The Giants won but came up a yard short again on third down. They punted.

That was it. Unitas toyed with New York's exhausted defense. L.G. Dupre ran for 11, Unitas hit Berry for 21, Ameche ran for 22 and Unitas hit Berry again for 12 yards to the 8, within easy field goal range.

Legend has it that Colts owner Carroll Rosenbloom had bet thousands of dollars on his team, which was favored by anywhere from 3Z\x to 5Z\x points. But the players insisted that because Myhra was unreliable, they went for the TD.

So Unitas passed to Mutscheller to the 1 and Ameche ran it in as fans swarmed the field.

The Colts and Giants simply went to the locker rooms, talked to the media and left — the Giants for homes all over the country, the Colts for a short flight to Baltimore, where 30,000 people met their plane. None thought about history.