Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

The night to never forget

Any Estimate

— BANGOR — The game over, Rosey Grier walked off the Garland Street football field, heading for the high school locker room beneath the grandstand. A young voice, coming from somewhere near Grier's waist, stopped him.

click image to enlarge

Mike Ayer, resident of Holden, Maine, with autograph book that was signed for him by the New York Giants team members in 1959. Ayer was at the 5oth Anniversary game Saturday, Sept. 5, 2009, at Cameron Stadium, Bangor, celebrating the 1959 football game between the Packers and the Giants. Michael C. York/Portland Press Herald

click image to enlarge

Ticket stubs from the 1959 football game between the Packers and the Giants, courtesy of the Bangor Museum. Michael C. York/Portland Press Herald

Select images available for purchase in the
Maine Today Photo Store

''Will you please sign my (autograph) book?'' Grier, all of 6-foot-5 and 280 pounds, reached down and put his arm around Frank Jordan.

''He picked me up like a rag doll,'' said Jordan, recalling that night in 1959 when he was 14. ''He signed my book while he was still holding me. He put me down and asked if anyone else had something to sign.

''It happened right there,'' said Jordan, pointing to the opening in the fence that surrounds what is now called Cameron Stadium. It seemed, he said, like it happened yesterday.

Fifty years ago to the day, the Green Bay Packers played the New York Giants in a preseason game on this very field. It was the first time two professional football teams played in Maine and it very well may be the last.

''It boggles the mind,'' said Bangor chief city councilor Jerry Parker, during a brief observance Saturday before Skowhegan and Bangor kicked off their seasons. The players wore 50th anniversary decals on their helmets. A plaque noting the 1959 game was shown to the crowd and will be mounted at the stadium.

Fans who were at the game 50 years ago were asked to stand. Maybe 20 did, while those around them applauded.

''You couldn't make something like that happen today,'' said Parker. ''You just couldn't. No one but the Jaycees thought they could pull it off (then).''

The Maine Jaycees and its local Bangor organization thought it would be a good idea to invite the NFL to help celebrate the 125th anniversary of the city's birth. The NFL wasn't the big business it is today. Why not try and make it happen?

Baltimore, the reigning champion, was invited but looked at a map and declined. The Giants, who were New England's team before the Patriots existed, got the next invite. The Giants' training camp was at St. Michael's College in Winooski, Vt. Just down the road. They agreed and preparations began.

The Packers, under new coach Vince Lombardi, arrived as early as Sunday before the game. Dan French of Unity, a 25-year-old member of the Bangor Jaycees, said some of the Packers attended mass at St. John's Catholic Church, then explored the town.

The teams stayed in local hotels. Some players were invited into homes. They ate at local restaurants, going back several times to The Baltimore, owned by the Baldacci family.

French was one of several go-fers who also served as escorts, accompanying players to public appearances. He asked Giants linebacker Sam Huff if he tackled Jim Brown, the great Cleveland running back, as hard as it looked on televison.

''Huff just smiled,'' said French. ''He said I'd have to ask Jim Brown.''

French hustled towels to the teams during practices at the Garland Street Field. He got an earful of Lombardi, who sometimes would vent to French on the mistakes his players made.

''He swore like a drunken sailor. I told people then I didn't think he'd last as a football coach. Jim Lee Howell, the Giants' coach, was a real nice guy.''

Interest built during the week but no one was buying tickets, said Stu Haskell, a former University of Maine athletic director. ''I was hired to do public relations work for the game so I was particularly interested in how tickets were going. It didn't look like I was doing my job.''

Instead, most fans bought their tickets the night of the game. There was seating for about 15,000, said French, and the crowd was said to be 12,000. French thought it was a little smaller. By any estimate, it was a huge crowd for a football game in Maine.

''Everywhere you looked, there was people,'' said Mike Ayer, who was 12 when he came with his buddy, Frank Jordan. ''That crowd looked massive.''

No one fully understood the significance. Paul Hornung, Bart Starr, Jim Taylor, Jim Ringo and Max McGee were some of the Packers who would be part of Lombardi's great teams. Frank Gifford, Grier and Huff were just a few of the men who became Giants legends.

Al Hackett, formerly a color man for University of Maine sports broadcasts, got married that afternoon and convinced his bride to delay their honeymoon until after the game. Will Farnham, a young football coach at Farmington (now Mt. Blue) High went with his 1959 team to the game. Afterward they visited in the Giants' locker room with Roger Ellis, the University of Maine center who was trying to make the team.

''My players looked around at the other Giants and their mouths dropped to the floor,'' said Farnham. ''It's still the night they remember most.''

Gabby Price, the former Bangor High and Husson football coach, was 8 years old. At halftime he saw Huff outside the locker room, sitting on his helmet and smoking a cigarette. John Fahey, a Bangor teacher, watched the Packers trot out of the tiny locker room in the middle school that's adjacent to the football field. ''Some were still pulling their uniform on,'' said Fahey, who was 23 that night. ''They all looked like giants.''

Late in the game, as the Giants lined up to kick a point after -- New York won the game 14-0 -- Ayer remembers an announcement that anyone catching the ball could keep it.

''There was a scrum behind the goal posts and somebody comes running out with the football. He ran the length of the field, through the parking lot and out onto Garland Street. No one saw him again.''

Saturday, Ayer showed off his 50-year-old autograph book. While Jordan was with Grier, Ayer ran after Rob Schnelker, a Giants end. Ayer caught him near the locker-room door.

''He told me to stay right there and he'd come back after he changed,'' said Ayer. ''He did. He took me by my hand and brought me to the door to the team bus. He signed my book and took it inside. He told everyone to sign it for a kid outside.''

The book went from seat to seat. Ayer showed me a page. Frank Gifford signed. Andy Robustelli and Jim Katcavage. Jim Lee Howell signed. Bob Schmidt. Grier. More pages had more signatures.

''I've dug this book in and out of boxes for 50 years to look at or show people. I've lost some of the pages,'' said Ayer.

But not the memory of the one night the NFL came to Bangor.

Staff Writer Steve Solloway can be contacted at 791-6415 or at:

ssolloway@mainetoday.com