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| Photo by Morris Berman of N.Y. Giants Quarterback Y.A. Tittle |
With the Super Bowel teams (the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers) all set to go, I thought I might share with you this amazing photograph. It's a photo that really gets me every time. When I see it I'm pretty sure that my heart stops beating for a moment. Taken in 1964 by photographer Morris Berman of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, it shows New York Giants quarterback Y.A. (Yelberton Abraham) Tittle after losing a battle to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Looking every bit like someone's grandfather praying, he's on his knees, ribs broken, blood flowing down his head like a river. This was in the days when football players went at it; like they where trying to take Pork Chop Hill! But, it's not just a great photo depicting the golden age of football... this image just captures the human condition, and the realization that sometimes we lose. Like Hemingway's Cuban fisherman Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea, who says; But a man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated. Sometimes we don't make it... sometimes we get our teeth knocked out (and handed to us) Papa knew it, and Y.A. learned it the hard way. Hopefully, one can return one day... to get another shot. Yeah, I love this photo... when I'm feelin' beat to all hell... I just think of Y.A. Tittle beaten and broken on that field and I don't feel so alone.
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