The Greatest Game Ever Played?

On December 28, 1958 I was in attendance at a Harlem Globetrotter game at the Teaneck Armory. I don't recall, but my best guess is that the Washington Generals were the opposition. However, that was not the most memorable sports event to take place that day.

Baltimore Colts 23, New York Giants 17. Alan Ameche scored in overtime to secure the NFL Championship for his team in the almost frozen tundra of Yankee Stadium. It was a contest that put the league into the minds, and the eyes, of the public. It stirred the imagination, quickened the heartbeat and was, in that instant, considered the greatest game ever played. 

I was 6 at that time, and so could be excused for preferring the antics of Meadowlark Lemon  to the thrill of victory and agony of defeat that was occurring but a few miles away.

Not even two years later, on October 13, 1960, there was another greatest game ever played. The New York Yankees boasted a team filled with future Hall of Famers from Mantle and Maris to Berra, Howard and Ford. They were matched up against a Pittsburgh Pirate team  that had no conceivable way of winning a 7 game World Series against a dynasty that was in no mood to falter, especially having failed to win the year before. And the Bombers simply destroyed the Bucs in the games they won. But they somehow found themselves in the ninth inning of game 7 knotted up at 9 apiece. And with one swing of the bat, it became the modern version of David felling Goliath, Bill Mazeroski becoming an instant legend, Ralph Terry forever the other half of that sentence and Yogi, the greatest Yankee catcher of all time, a helpless left fielder watching the arc of history bend over his head. And an 8 year old, who already bled pinstripes, had the first worst baseball memory of his young life.

There have been other sports, other moments, that captured for a time, maybe forever, the title of best game ever played. Do you believe in miracles? Well, the 1980 US boys against the Russian men on the ice in Lake Placid could certainly qualify for the top spot on anyone's list. Even if, asterisk, this was not the gold medal game and the US had one more hurdle to overcome before biting into gold.

And individual accomplishments, from Mark Spitz to Michael Phelps, from Jack Nicklaus to Tiger Woods, from Michael Jordan to Lebron James, from Muhammad Ali to Mike Tyson, from one sport to the next, have dotted the landscape over the decades.

But now there is a new King in town, or at least, a top contender for the throne. Lionel Messi and his Argentinian teammates, tasted almost impossible defeat in the first game of this 2022 World Cup. Messi, his beard now tinged with evidence of the passing years, his legacy still one title short of being complete, was on the edge of disaster, staring into a tomorrow with the certainty that there would not be another opportunity on this stage to challenge the legends of Pele, Maradona, Ronaldo or Beckenbauer. This was where his line in the sand had been drawn.

But his team found its footing and its resolve and on Sunday, December 18 found itself one last step from destiny. Staring across from them was France, the winner of the last World Cup in 2018, led by Messi's club teammate and the next in line to be known as simply the finest footballer on the planet, Mbappe, whose 2023 salary is to be over 90 million Euros.

This was history, past, present and future. And for 120 glorious minutes, each second seemed its own universe. Then, almost absurdly, destiny was left dangling on a string of kicks, 12 yards from heaven, with only the goaltender and the weight of the world stopping perfection. This, at once, had become something even more than the imagination had the audacity to conjure.

Messi, glorious with two scores. Mbappe even better with three. Each converted his penalty kick to begin the procession and then watched and waited, helpless as others would soon determine their respective fates.

And in the end, it is likely that if a vote were held today, Alberto Fernandez would finish a very distant second for President of Argentina. In that instant when it seemed the entire world was holding its collective breath, what was produced on this field in Qatar, was almost more than the mind could absorb.

The greatest game ever played? Who would argue to the contrary? Likely, not even the Harlem Globetrotters.