Back in the day – long before the television-saturated era in which we now live – not every NFL game was on television. For example, in the early 1960s – when the New York Giants were of championship caliber – their home games at Yankee Stadium were not televised in the New York market.
How to follow the Giants home games? Well, there was radio. The medium was around back then too and even in 2018 it is still a great way to follow a football game. But Giants fans wanted to watch their favorites like quarterback Y.A. Tittle, no matter how much fun it was listening to a game on the radio. (In 1962, by the way, the “Voice of the Yankees,” Mel Allen, broadcast Giants games on radio and Ballantine Beer was the sponsor.). If you lived in New York, however, and didn’t have a ticket to a home game at Yankee Stadium, you were out of luck.
Enterprising hotels and motels came to the rescue – especially those located in Connecticut. As one ad in the Oct. 26, 1962 edition of The NY Times implored, take the short drive to Connecticut to watch Big Blue.
And many people did. Some in New York, even went so far as to erect “high-powered” TV antennas atop their apartments in the hope of pulling in Hartford’s CBS affiliate, which televised the games. Most of their attempts, however, ended with interference.
These days the New York Giants – who play in New Jersey – are readily available to watch on brilliant HDTV both home and away. However, with another poor season droning on, there’s not much to see, when it comes to “Big Blue.” Better that interference return to the screen, when a Giants game is televised.
