“Well, you kept catching it,” Unitas said.

That’s all. Unitas smiled and shrugged his shoulders. He always made it seem like playing football for a living, in front of frenzied, riotous crowds, was just like any other job. And that was surely part of his magic: You punched in, you kept your head down, and at the end of the day you punched out again.

In the pandemonium of the sudden death championship game at Yankee Stadium — the so-called Greatest Game Ever Played, the one that opened America’s eyes to the glories of pro football, the game whose 50th anniversary we mark today — John Constantine Unitas kept his head down, and kept it cool, while all about him were losing theirs.

Around Baltimore, people watched their television sets in such a state of raw anxiety we could barely get up and walk across the room. At Yankee Stadium, the crowd of 64,185 roared thunderously, and the temperature dropped and daylight turned to dusk, and the wind kicked up swirls of dirt, and Unitas kept throwing the football to Berry, who kept catching it.

He completed 12 passes to Berry that day. In the final 90 seconds of regulation, he hit Berry three straight times to set up the tying field goal with seven seconds left, and then he hit him twice more in overtime to set up the touchdown plunge by Alan “The Horse” Ameche.

No one had ever seen anything like it before. We were just coming out of the age of the cardboard helmet, a time when teams still were routinely plunging into the line for three yards and a cloud of dust. Nobody had ever seen a two-minute drill; and here was Unitas, inventing it right before our eyes.

The great drama so captured the American imagination that baseball, for so long seen as the national pastime, was now perceived as drowsy and retrograde by a whole new generation of fans who were simultaneously embracing another product that was blossoming in the national consciousness: television. The two were made for each other. Together, they changed the nation’s sporting culture that day. Football was king, and Unitas its first modern poster child.

For Baltimoreans, he was the personification of the way we wished to see ourselves: the working-class guy who made hard work and toughness and perseverance pay off. Maybe we were just scruffy Baltimore. But for 17 autumns, we had Unitas throwing footballs across the horizon unlike anyone else in history.

And, all these years later, when you talk to the surviving Colts about Unitas, there still is the same kind of awe that Berry expressed some years ago: John was the heart of it all. And yet he seemed less impressed by himself than anyone around him.

Some people earned their living by plumbing or standing on a factory assembly line. Unitas made his living playing football, and approached the game with the same mentality — and the same emotional outlook — as any other working stiff: These are the skills, and here is how you apply them.

The world may be erupting in panic all around you, but you have a job to do.

Unitas kept his emotions in check, and he did his job.

He was a 5-year-old kid when he lost his father, and his mother ran a small coal-delivery business and scrubbed office floors from 10 at night until 6 in the morning for $12 a week so she could keep the family together.

Unitas knew there were things in life tougher than playing a football game.

He knew it through a painful growing up, and he knew it through a series of rejections. First Notre Dame turned him down when he wanted to play football there. Too small, they told him, glancing at his scrawny 6-foot, 145-pound frame. Other collegiate football powers felt the same.

Then the Pittsburgh Steelers rejected him. They drafted him out of Louisville but never let him play a single down in preseason before cutting him.

He hitchhiked home — had to save his money — and worked on a construction crew and played semi-pro ball for $6 a game until the Colts, desperate for a backup quarterback, placed an 80-cent phone call inviting him for a tryout.

He was tough emotionally, and tough physically.

Once, a few years ago, the great Hall of Fame tackle Artie Donovan was asked, “Who was the toughest of all the old Colts?”

Surely it was Gino “The Giant” Marchetti, or Gene “Big Daddy” Lipscomb, or maybe the Iron Horse, Bill Pellington.

Nope.

“Unitas,” said Donovan. “Because he took the most punishment.”

He wasn’t much to look at: skinny, pale body, long arms, huge hands. But he seemed impervious to punishment. Some still recall a 1960 game against the Chicago Bears, when Doug Atkins smashed Unitas’ nose and mouth. The Colts called timeout. The clock showed less than a minute to play, and they were down by four. They couldn’t stop the blood from flowing out of Unitas’ nose.

Coach Weeb Ewbank said, “I’m taking you out of the game.”

“You do,” said Unitas, “and I’ll kill you.”

They stopped the bleeding only when guard Alex Sandusky reached down, grabbed a clump of mud, and shoved it up Unitas’ nose.

And, on the very next play, John threw a long one to Lenny Moore, in the corner of Bears’ end zone, for the winning touchdown as time ran out.

By the time he retired, Unitas had been named Most Valuable Player three times. The Colts had won three world championships, and Unitas held most of the NFL passing records. The biggest one was throwing touchdown passes in 47 consecutive games, which has withstood the test of time.

Not that Unitas ever noticed.

“Statistics are for losers,” he said.

He played football to win — by whatever measures necessary — even if it took sudden death overtime to do it.

When they returned from New York 50 years ago tonight, the Colts were met at the airport by 30,000 delirious fans. Some of them climbed atop the Colts’ airport bus. Players worried they might be crushed.

When they finally escaped the crowd and the players got to their cars, Unitas and defensive back Andy Nelson drove home together. Not long ago, Nelson was asked about that ride home. They had just moved the whole world. Did the two men chatter away, reliving every play? Did they listen to the radio to hear people talking about it?

Nope. They rode home in silence, Nelson said. Then he got out of the car. And Unitas turned to Nelson and said, “See you tomorrow.”

That was Unitas. Always, he kept his head when all about him were losing theirs.