The '63 Steelers (31 page)

“Not since the days in the late 1930's when Pitt, Carnegie Tech and Duquesne all had the city in a dither over football has there been so much excitement generated here over the sport as we noted the past weekend,” columnist Al Abrams wrote two days after the win over Cleveland. “And we ask you—wasn't it nice to see a story on the Steelers' win leading off page 1 plus a picture of Pitt Stadium filled to capacity rather than vice raids, political promises, murders and what else have you in the way of world ills?”
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Abrams neglected to mention one prominent story on page 1 headlined “Police Quiz Gang in Stab Death,” the slaying of an eighteen-year-old football star from Westinghouse High School. But at least murders were down. A story inside Monday's
Post-Gazette
ran with the headline “Pittsburgh No
Longer Haven for Murderers.” It cited a national magazine article from the early fifties with the title “You Can Get Away with Murder in Western Pennsylvania,” a story inspired by the “frightful” number of unsolved murders in Allegheny County, Pittsburgh in particular. The face of Pittsburgh had changed since Captain Eugene Cook took over as head of homicide in April. All fifteen murder cases since then had been solved.
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But guns as toys were still popular. An ad in the paper accompanied by photos and descriptions of items such as a burp gun, a combat bazooka set, and a battery machine gun declared Horne stores to be the “Headquarters for Military Fun Toys.” That Monday was Veterans Day, and on Tuesday the
Post-Gazette
paired a photo of the parade in downtown Pittsburgh with one of President Kennedy placing a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Steeler fans weren't the only ones feeling merry from the weekend's events. Abrams received a thank you note and an autographed photo from Irma the Body, who was about to begin a limited engagement as a burlesque dancer at the Casino, billed as “a Pennsylvania Dutch girl from Lancaster County.” Abrams also got a request from Sophie's Café in Cleveland for forty copies of Monday's newspaper.
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But the career of one woman who had the credentials to compete with Irma the Body suffered a brief setback. Jayne Mansfield's movie
Promises! Promises!
—“which demonstrates she is top-heavy in everything but talent,” wrote reporter-turned-critic Vince Johnson—was banned in Pittsburgh on Wednesday.
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A judge, the police superintendent, an assistant police superintendent, and an assistant district attorney made the unanimous decision after viewing the cofeature, a film on life in a nudist camp, and then a portion of the Mansfield movie. Only a few days before,
Promises! Promises!
had been shut down in a Cleveland suburb despite the lament of Mansfield's husband, Mickey Hargitay. “It's a shame they did it. After all,” he said, “sex is here to stay.”
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Football was a close rival in terms of entertainment, and not just in Pittsburgh—or Cleveland or New York. Chicago, scheduled to play in Pittsburgh the following week, was primed to host Green Bay in a showdown of 8–1 teams tied for first place in the Western Conference. “The big city is all shook up sportswise,” and $5 tickets for the game at 48,600-capacity Wrigley Field were being scalped for fifty bucks.
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Coach George Halas had four security men, including one with binoculars, patrol Wrigley Field during practice.
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Several railroad lines were scheduling day-long excursions so that fans could view the game on television beyond the 75-mile blackout radius.

The Bears worked out at Wrigley on Tuesday after watching films of the Steeler-Packer game, and the Bays, as they were called, practiced amid 30 mph gusts of wind in Green Bay. The Steelers, meanwhile, were enjoying two days off for the second week in a row. Parker maintained it was not a reward for the victory over Cleveland but rather was meant to give the players a break from the grind of late-season practices.
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The Steelers rated as seven-point favorites over Washington even though they had not won on the road all season. The Redskins, with their erratic play, had cultivated a reputation as “football schizophrenics.”
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Since losing the NFL title game in 1945, the Redskins had only three winning seasons in seventeen years, the last coming in 1955, and had won just a single game in two of the three previous seasons. Mired in a last-place tie with Dallas in the Eastern Division at 2–7 in November 1963, the Redskins were a besieged team, faulted for an unimaginative offense and second-guessed for not giving backup quarterback George Izo a shot. Coach Bill McPeak denied there was dissension on the team.
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McPeak was trying to work speedy Frank Budd into the lineup at split end, which could pose a worry to a banged-up Steeler secondary. Brady Keys, with bruised ribs, and Clendon Thomas, with bruised thighs, had taken their lumps from Jim Brown but were deemed ready to practice. “Nothing that a little youth wouldn't cure,” Thomas said.
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McPeak had other worries besides talk of turmoil on the squad. Bobby Mitchell was slowed by a pulled muscle early in the week. Halfback Dick James, described by
Press
beat writer Pat Livingston as “a pygmyish, 29-yearold father of five,” was hobbled, but the Steelers, for sure, expected him to play. James had scored two TDs in the first meeting. “That's one kid who's always ready,” Steeler assistant coach Mike Nixon said. “Man, he kills us every time we play him,” Parker said.
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And the Steelers still had to contend with the Redskins' defensive line— “big, two-fisted bruisers who play for keeps.”
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But that was the kind of challenge that brought out the best in Parker's squad. “We beat the crap out of everybody, but didn't win too many games,” Ballman said years later, after his retirement. “Buddy Parker … picked up all the bad-assed players on waivers. We were sort of like an early version of the Oakland Raiders.”
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Parker's main concern was the psyche of his team. The Steelers were still in the hunt, but the focus in the Eastern Division was on the coleaders, Cleveland and New York. Pittsburgh loomed as more of a spoiler, and Parker didn't mind the underdog role. “Frankly, I feel a lot better about going to Washington without the pressure of the pennant race bearing down on
us,” Parker said. “This is a team that plays better when it's relaxed.” That was pretty much Ballman's natural disposition.
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On the eve of the game, it was announced that sixty-three-year-old Steeler owner Art Rooney, who had founded the team thirty years earlier, was to be honored at a banquet for Children's Hospital. The late Bert Bell, who had served as NFL commissioner, had founded the Philadelphia Eagles, and at one time was co-owner of the Steelers, once said of Rooney, “He looks only for the good side of every man. He's a person with countless friends and not one enemy.”
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The benefit was scheduled for January 19, 1964—three weeks after the NFL Championship Game.

The AFL, in its fourth year of existence, was battling to establish its legitimacy and was challenging the NFL for a championship showdown. That week, Pete Retzlaff, the Eagles' tight end and president of the NFL Players Association, said that the AFL was three to five years away from reaching the level of play necessary to make itself a worthy challenger to the NFL in a title game.
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Pete Rozelle, who had succeeded Bell as commissioner in 1960, curtly quashed the possibility of an NFL-AFL title game. “We have no plans for any games at all with the other league,” he said.
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As the Steelers went though a light workout on Friday, the day before leaving for D.C., another would-be challenger who worked in Washington, and a long shot as well, was visiting Pittsburgh. Barry Goldwater had not formally declared himself a candidate for president, but the Republican senator from Arizona sounded every bit like one as he spoke at an event sponsored by the Harvard Business School Association of Pittsburgh. The
Post-Gazette
published an editorial about the support for him in western Pennsylvania, on the same page it ran a column by James Reston in which the columnist cited “a vague feeling of doubt and disappointment in the country” about President Kennedy's first term. “He has touched the intellect of the country but not the heart,” Reston wrote. “He has informed but not inspired the nation.”
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A Gallup poll revealed that weekend that Kennedy's approval rating was 59 percent. Reston quoted a carpenter from Cleveland, a man who might have been speaking for a significant constituency when he said: “All I know is that we have work and peace.”
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In contrast to the dank overcast of the previous Sunday, the temperature at District of Columbia Stadium reached 72 degrees, and the capacity crowd of 42,219 was graced with sunshine. What they witnessed taking place between a last-place team in disarray and a fourth-place team scrapping for a
division title was “the kind of action that would have sent the wildest-eyed movie script writer in captivity to the nuthouse,” wrote columnist Al Abrams, in “what has to be one of the wildest pro football games in history.”
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Or at least in the Pittsburgh Steelers' 1963 season.

Frustrated Redskin fans were not in a charitable mood. During pregame introductions, they booed defensive back Claude Crabb, who had led the team in interceptions as a rookie the year before but was part of a defensive backfield that gave up three touchdown passes to St. Louis the week before. Obviously, he didn't have the luxury of Jim Bradshaw running onto the field in his stead. But Crabb won over the crowd on the fourth play from scrimmage when he intercepted a pass intended for Red Mack on a square-out pattern and raced 53 yards down the sideline for a touchdown.
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It would have been easy to jump to the conclusion that the Steelers were suffering a letdown after the victory over the Browns. On first down after the kickoff, John Henry Johnson fumbled and Washington's Andy Stynchula recovered on the 25. But the Steeler defense held, and Bob Khayat missed a 28-yard field goal.

The Steelers went 3-and-out, and Washington got the ball back on its 38. A 10-yard reception by Mitchell helped move the ball to the Steeler 39, but on fourth-and-1, Khayat missed again, this time from 46 yards. If there was one soul in the stadium who felt any sympathy, it was likely the guy on the other side of the line of scrimmage, Lou Michaels.

Starting at their 20, the Steelers started to click. Buddy Dial would be held to two catches that afternoon, but he beat Crabb for a 43-yard reception that took Pittsburgh to the Washington 37. Ballman made two catches, for 8 and 10 yards, to give the Steelers first-and-goal at the 9. “He's from Detroit,” wrote Jack Walsh of the
Washington Post
, “and as fast as any of the latest models they're turning out.” Johnson carried three straight times, for 5, 1, and the final 3 yards, on a sweep, to tie the score, 7–7, with twenty-two seconds left in the quarter.
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The teams exchanged punts at the start of the second quarter. Snead hit Richter for 13 yards and Fred Dugan for 9 to reach the Steeler 22, but Joe Krupa recovered Snead's fumble at the 32. Ed Brown missed Dial on two straight passes but hit Johnson for a gain of 20 yards to the Washington 37. Two incompletions left Pittsburgh with fourth-and-6 at the 33, giving Michaels a shot at a 40-yard field goal. In eight previous attempts, he had only hit on a 9-yard attempt. The 40-yarder, with just under four minutes left before halftime, was wide right. On this afternoon, it didn't look as if a field goal was going to be enough to make the difference in the game.

Two consecutive penalties—for backfield in motion and pushing—left the Skins bogged down at their 7, but they weren't about to be trapped in the end zone like Jim Brown. Budd wasn't the only former track star on the team. At the University of Illinois, Mitchell set a world indoor record in the 70-yard low hurdles, and he had entertained thoughts of competing in the Olympics. Mitchell was all the more of a threat to the Steelers because Keys was out of the lineup, having committed the cardinal sin of trying to tackle Jim Brown up high.

In a midseason game at Yankee Stadium the year before, Giants defensive back Erich Barnes had the task of trying to cover Mitchell man to man. The Giants survived, 49–34, but Mitchell caught touchdown passes of 44 and 80 yards. “You blink your eyes and he's gone,” Barnes said. Barnes was able to contain Mitchell over most of the second half, but the Redskin receiver knew that it was only a matter of time before he would explode. “No one can cover me man-for-man. It just isn't possible,” Mitchell told Barnes.
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Budd juggled a pass but held on to move Washington 17 yards to the 24. On third-and-6, Snead hit Mitchell for a 22-yard gain to the 46. Ernie Stautner tackled Snead for a 14-yard loss, but on the next play the Steelers were called offside. After the two-minute warning, on second-and-19 from his 37, Snead fired a 44-yard pass to Mitchell, putting the Redskins on the 19. Washington called time-out with 1:47 left in the half.

As an offensive back at Tennessee, Glenn Glass was hailed as “a blinding runner.”
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But even someone with his speed needed help against Mitchell. Snead found Mitchell in the corner of the end zone, beating Glass, who was called for interference on the play, to put the Redskins ahead, 14–7, with 1:31 to go before halftime. Asked afterward if Mitchell was the toughest receiver he had ever covered, a beleaguered Glass replied, “Are you kidding me?”
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The Steelers had no match for Mitchell—and neither did anyone else in the NFL. But Pittsburgh was about to unveil a player who could lurk as an explosive threat. After Johnson ran for 11 yards to the 33, Brown zeroed in on Ballman. Defensive back Dale Hackbart, “looking like a centerfielder,” focused on the ball, but Ballman leaped to snatch it away and sprint 67 yards for a touchdown.
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“Hackbart was in front of me,” Ballman explained later, “but somehow he missed it. I jumped and it sort of stuck in one hand. That's a once-in-a-lifetime catch for me.”
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