John Delach

Robert Riger, the renowned sport’s photographer, artist and writer, took a black and white photograph at Yankee Stadium late in December of 1962 during the NFL Championship Game between the New York Giants and the Green Bay Packers. Six of the eleven members of the Packers defensive squad stand in the foreground, their backs to the camera. Number 46, Hank Gremminger is closest to the camera. To his right stands Number 87, Willie Davis. Number 79, Dave Hanner stands in the center partially obscured by the dust blowing up from the Yankee Stadium infield. Numbers 66, Ray Nitschie, 74, Henry Jordon and 83, Bill Quinlan, stand to his right. All wear white uniform jerseys with dark stripes on the sleeves and dark pants with a lighter stripe on the seam. The teams’ capital G logo is visible on several of their helmets.

They are all looking at the Football Giants offensive squad who are bowed in a team huddle preparing their next play. Only three linemen’s numbers are visible, tackle, Jack Stroud, 66, center, Greg Larsen, 53 and tackle, Roosevelt Brown, 79. The Giants are dressed in dark jerseys with white numerals and white pants with a dark stripe along the seam. Only the side of Brown’s helmet is visible revealing the teams’ lower case ny logo.

A solitary game official stands between the two teams, head bowed, his white and black striped shirt barely visible through the dust. He is wearing a white hat designating that he is the referee.

The stadium grandstand provides a background for the photo, the lower deck, mezzanine and part of the upper deck. Bunting lines hangs from the façade fronting the upper deck. Curiously, despite the wind that is blowing across the field, the bunting remains undisturbed.

The photo captures Sections 8, 10 and 12. A capacity crowd fills the stands and the open press box suspended in front of the mezzanine. The wind-blown dirt makes it impossible to identify any single individual.

What the photo doesn’t show is the cold. The temperature at 2 p.m. when the game began was 16 degrees and the wind was clocked at 40 mph. Being a city kid in this pre-Gortex era, my clothes are no match for the cold. The scarf, overcoat and ear muffs worked pretty well, but the cold concrete easily defeated the thin soles of my shoes in the same way that the freezing air penetrated my unlined leather gloves.

The Packers would prevail, 16 to 7 and, I sat somewhere in Section 12 obscured in the photo by four of the Packer defenders and the flying dirt. I remember how devastated I was that my team lost. Compounding my misery was the cold. I was never again as cold as I was that day.

This was only one of Robert Riger’s brilliant photographs. In a book entitled, “The Sports Photography of Robert Riger” the author notes: “(Riger) began taking photographs in 1950 as research for his drawings. His distinctive sepia-colored sketches appeared in the first issue of Sports Illustrated in 1954 and became a regular and familiar feature in the magazine for many years afterward.

“He was soon publishing both drawings and photographs, and in 1960, his first photography book, The Pros, was published. The same year he became a writer / photographer / artist for Esquire. In 1963, Riger joined ABC’s Wide World of Sports, where he became a producer / director of many ground-breaking and award-winning programs. Among his prizes were nine Emmys. In the 1980s, Riger’s Journal appeared regularly on ESPN. His books include The American Diamond, Best Plays of the Year, Man in Sport and The Athlete.”

He died on May 19, 1995 in Huntington, California. 

He drew the covers for the programs for several organizations including the New York Football Giants. In 1958 Shell commissioned Riger to draw a series of ten scenes featuring Giants players for distribution to customers at their gasoline stations. A friend of mine recently came across an offer to sell an entire set in excellent condition. He told me this story of how he acquired the prints:

“ There is a side-story to the purchase of the Giants Robert Riger prints. The seller requested that I phone him before he accepted my transaction for $129.99 plus shipping that totaled $152 and change. I called back not without some curiosity. He was friendly and engaging and explained that they belonged to his recently deceased father but had no extra value to him other than sentimental (not a fan.) However, since they meant a lot to his father, he wanted to know what I was going to do with the them and to make sure they had a good home. He was disarmingly sincere about my plans for them. Nevertheless, I had a feeling that the money meant more to him than the sentiment so I offered him another $100 which was unsolicited. He came away happy with my plan and slight windfall. I came away with a cherished piece of memorabilia and a warm glow of doing good. A win-win.”

A happy ending to a good story.