The '63 Steelers (32 page)

Another one-in-a-million catch would occur before the season was over, and it would also be a case of a pass just sticking in the hand of a receiver. It would be a pivotal point in the Steelers' season, and it would prove once again how fickle fate could be. “Sometime[s] you get a kick from Up Above,”
Paul Brown said after Cleveland got a break in a victory over Pittsburgh the year before.
⁶⁰
The Steelers were looking for that kind of kick to fulfill Buddy Parker's title hopes, but it had been as elusive during his tenure as a Lou Michaels boot over the previous six quarters of play.

On this day, Ballman was making up for the lost Sundays from his rookie season. He was on his way to catching eight passes for 161 yards, but that was only part of the impact he was having on the game. “Few in the stands had ever heard of the Steeler rookie before, but by the time the game was over his was the name which was on everybody's lips.”
⁶¹

Now it was Pittsburgh's turn to get a break. As the clock wound down, Pat Richter caught a 19-yard pass to midfield. A couple of Steelers, “apparently [John] Baker and Ernie Stautner, took turns whacking quarterback Snead,” resulting in a personal foul. Clearly, on this day Pete Rozelle would make no headway in his war on roughness. Completions to Mitchell and fullback Don Bosseler, plus a second personal foul, put Washington on the 13. A third-down screen pass to Bosseler took the Redskins down to the 4 with only seven seconds left. Khayat lined up and kicked a 10-yard field goal but the officials ruled the gun had sounded for the end of the half, and the kick was disallowed.
⁶²

By halftime, Snead already had 210 yards passing, 129 of them by Mitchell. It looked as if the Redskins had learned from their loss to Pittsburgh four weeks earlier and were eliminating critical mistakes.

The Redskins took the second-half kickoff, and Stautner paused from whacking Snead to recover a fumble by halfback Bill Barnes at the Washington 45. The Steelers' ground game perked up, with Johnson carrying for 3 yards, then 5, and 5 more. Hoak picked up 17 on a draw, down to the 15. Johnson's 4-yard run gave Pittsburgh first-and-goal at the 5, and from there he gained four more before plunging the final yard for the TD that gave Pittsburgh a 21–14 lead with 6:58 gone in the quarter.

Snead hit Dugan for a 14-yard gain, but on the next play Thomas got his fifth interception of the season when he picked off a pass intended for Richter and returned it 32 yards to the Redskin 22. But the Washington defense stiffened, so Parker called on Michaels. He didn't have any real option, but Parker had a little insight into pressure kicks. After all, it was the “slashing Centenary halfback” himself who had provided the winning points in the upset of Texas years earlier by kicking a field goal in the final forty-five seconds. In the days after missing all five attempts against Cleveland, Michaels was groping for a solution to his slump. “All I have to do is boot one through the uprights and I'll be OK again,” he said. He
connected now, from 27 yards, to give the Steelers a 24–14 advantage, and himself a boost in confidence.
⁶³

Snead stayed aggressive, hitting Bill Anderson for 13 yards and Mitchell for 12 and 15 yards, but on second-and-3 from the Steeler 24, Dick Haley, the hero of the first Washington game, stole a pass at the 6, his fifth interception of the year. The Steelers methodically marched downfield, 2 or 3 yards at a time, with five carries by Johnson sandwiched around one by Hoak. As the fourth quarter opened, a 17-yard completion to Ballman put Pittsburgh on the Redskin 41. After Hoak lost 8 yards, creating third-and-18 at the 49, Brown hooked up with Ballman for a 31-yard gain. But on the next play, at the 18, Brown fumbled and tackle Bob Toneff recovered at the 26.

Snead wasn't wasting time with his running game. Barnes took a 54-yard pass down to the Steeler 20, and then he threw one himself, a halfback option to Mitchell, all alone in the right corner of the end zone, to bring the Redskins within 24–21 with 4:21 gone in the quarter. Parker's squad appeared to be on the verge of another collapse.

“We should have had at least three more touchdowns,” Parker grumbled later. “We gummed up at least that number of chances to put the scores on the board. And that fumble scared the daylights out of me.”
⁶⁴

Brown didn't panic and come out throwing. Other than two passes of 9 yards apiece to Ballman, the Steelers let Johnson and Hoak carry the load on a fourteen-play drive, challenging Washington's rugged defensive line. But on first-and-10 at the Washington 11, Brown threw three incompletions, leaving it up to Michaels to kick an 18-yard field goal for a 27–21 Steeler lead with 5:16 left in the game.

With halfback Dick James injured, the Redskins had no running game. They would total only 38 yards on the ground and not pick up a first down by rushing (compared to 11 by Pittsburgh). Snead had been intercepted twice, but he kept firing away. Glass broke up a pass intended for Mitchell, but on second-and-9 from the Washington 46 Mitchell eluded his shadow and caught a 33-yard pass down to the Steeler 21. One play later, Snead hit Richter in the left corner of the end zone with Thomas close enough to graze the receiver's helmet. With 2:38 to go, the Steelers were down 28–27. As Ballman and Thomas lined up for the kickoff, the Steelers called for a return left. Ballman caught the ball on the 8-yard line and “careened down his left sideline.”
⁶⁵
As the Redskins converged, Ballman saw second-year end John Powers “smother Rod Breedlove” and guard Mike Sandusky throw another block.
⁶⁶
“As I got through the hole, Clendon Thomas was ahead
of me,” Ballman explained. “I grabbed him and steered him into [Lonnie] Sanders [a teammate at Michigan State] and then cut back. They had me sidelined.”
⁶⁷

Ballman “weaved his way laterally, like a frightened settler, through a war party of Braves in Tribe territory” and then “veered sharply to the center of the field, where he took off like a cannon shot.”
⁶⁸
It was a chance he had to take. “It's always a risk when you cut back in this league,” Ballman said. “You never know what's behind you, but I didn't think I could go any farther along the sideline.”
⁶⁹
It sounded like that “special insight” he described to his wife, Judi: “Just pick a spot and go.”

From there, Ballman revved up his Detroit motor, and by the time he reached the Washington 30, he was not to be caught. The Steelers had a 34–28 lead, but Norm Snead, “6 feet 4 inches of pure determination,” still had 2:20 to work with, and the Redskins had “one final wheeze” left in them.
⁷⁰

Budd returned the kickoff to his 35. Snead hit Bosseler for 12 yards, and fist-swinging between the fullback and Baker “precipitated a near-riot.” It was just the nature of the game, Stautner explained: “Baker just lost his head when Bosseler started kicking him.”
⁷¹

Snead hit Richter for 13 yards, and yet another personal foul advanced Washington to the Steeler 25 with 1:26 left. It was a déjà vu NFL moment, a flashback to St. Louis. But on first down, Snead's pass to Anderson was broken up by Daniel and Thomas and almost intercepted. A second-down pass was intended for Mitchell, who'd already set a team record with eleven receptions for 218 yards, but Glass tipped the ball away at the last second. However, it was Stautner, “the old man,” who saved the Steelers, said losing coach Bill McPeak. “Stautner killed that pass, not Glass,” McPeak said. “Nobody else in the league could have charged that kid so fast. He made Snead hurry his throw.”
⁷²

On third down, Snead misfired for Anderson again. On fourth down, with 1:09 left, McPeak was looking for a first down, so he called for a sideline pass to Mitchell. “But Norm Snead thought Pittsburgh was going into a zone defense instead of man-to-man and he changed the play, a ‘stop' pass to Richter,” the coach explained.
⁷³

Snead aimed for the six-foot-five-and-a-half-inch Richter, but the rookie was guarded closely by Russell and Haley, and the pass went incomplete. That was it for the Redskins. There would be no repeat of the Charley Johnson–to–Bobby Joe Conrad magic. Snead had thrown forty times, completing twenty-three for 424 yards, but his failure to get his twenty-fourth
completion left the Skins losers. The Steelers were not the ones who were snake bitten. “Someone is not living right around here,” McPeak said, “and it must be me.”
⁷⁴

Ballman didn't let himself get carried away with his heroics. Asked the next day at the Curbstone Coaches luncheon if he felt that he had “arrived,” he reverted to his irreverent manner. “Sure,” he replied. “My car is parked in the lot across the street.”
⁷⁵

The Steelers were still clinging to hopes for a division title, and they were doing it with battered veterans like Stautner and John Henry Johnson, discards like Haley, and unpolished talents like Ballman. The chase was exhilarating but exhausting. “Wasn't that a game,” Parker said in a whisper.
⁷⁶

The Giants, meanwhile, cruised to a 48–14 victory over the 49ers behind Y. A. Tittle's four touchdown passes and 284 yards in the air against his old team. The win was the Giants' fifth straight, a streak in which they scored at least thirty-three points in each game. The Giants took over sole possession of first place in the Eastern Conference with an 8–2 record as the Cards beat the Browns, 20–14, leaving the two teams in a tie for second at 7–3.

But the most impressive victory of the day came at Wrigley Field, where the Bears whipped the Packers, 26–7, leaving 9–1 Chicago alone in first place in the Western Conference. The Bears throttled the Packer offense, intercepting Bart Starr's fill-ins five times and snatching up three Green Bay fumbles. It was a dominating performance sure to seize Parker's attention, with the Bears traveling to Forbes Field in a week.

But for one day, the Steelers could savor another comeback, from another in a weekly parade of heroes. Art Rooney, as well aware as anyone that a football game and a horse race can be equally unpredictable, could appreciate a contest that went down to the final seconds. “I like to see my horse coming down to the wire neck-and-neck in the pack,” Rooney said, “then win out in a photo finish!”
⁷⁷
Rooney was about to see his kind of race come to life on the football field.

Half-a-million people were expected to turn out to greet President Kennedy in Chicago on Saturday morning, November 2, 1963, the day he was scheduled to attend the Army–Air Force game at Soldier Field. However, press secretary Pierre Salinger announced at the last minute that the trip would be canceled because the president had to tend to the worsening situation in South Vietnam, a military coup that overturned the government of President Ngo Dinh Diem.
¹

Ten days later, as the Bears prepared for their first-place showdown against the Packers at Wrigley Field, and scalpers prepared for a big payoff, coach George Halas was asked if he would invite President Kennedy to the game. “I'm sure if the president wants to see the game, I can find a seat for him,” Halas replied.
²

College football had been revered by fans for decades, and 1963 would mark the tenth straight year in which attendance rose, this time to a record of more than twenty-two million fans. But pro football was turning into a mania. An Illinois couple getting a divorce became embroiled in “the bitterest fight of all” over custody of Bears season tickets. Packer fans' only hope of getting home tickets was by being bequeathed them in a will. “Such is the phenomenal and growing popularity and hypnosis of the gladiatorial encounter known as professional football,” wrote Steve Snider of UPI.
³

In fact, interest in the pro game had been surging for several years, not unlike the frenzy that accompanied the popularity of Elvis and Sinatra. After fans stormed the field at Yankee Stadium before the finish of a Browns-Giants game in December of '59, forcing players and Browns coach
Paul Brown to flee the field, and delaying the game for twenty minutes,
New York Times
columnist Arthur Daley commented that pro football “has become engulfed by an emotionalism that now approaches hysteria.”
⁴

And that hysteria knew no bounds. Giants coach Jim Lee Howell, a native of Lonoke, Arkansas, observed: “New York fans are just like the fans in Lonoke, Arkansas, only there are more of 'em here.”
⁵

In 1934, the NFL had fewer customers than the number of people who awaited Kennedy in Chicago. Ten years later, spectators topped one million. In 1952, the thirty-third year of the NFL's existence, attendance reached two million. In 1962, the total was a record 4,003,421, and that figure was likely to be broken by the end of the '63 season. Television sparked the boom in interest, and the NFL profited handsomely. The fourteen teams split profits of $4,650,000 from TV, and the NFL took in $926,000 for telecast rights to the championship game, with much of the sum directed toward a player pension fund. On an average Sunday in the fall, fifteen million TV sets were tuned in to NFL games. Interest in pro football was about to explode, and no longer did baseball enjoy an unchallenged claim as the national pastime.
⁶

Chicago fans had as intense an interest as anyone in the nation over the NFL telecasts scheduled for Sunday, November 24. After manhandling the Packers, the 9–1 Bears could edge out 8–2 Green Bay in the Western Conference race by winning their four remaining games, starting with Pittsburgh. After escaping Washington with a victory, the 6–3–1 Steelers still had a shot at climbing over St. Louis and Cleveland, both 7–3, and past 8–2 New York, but they couldn't afford another loss. The day after his game-winning dash, Gary Ballman was asked at the Curbstone Coaches luncheon whether his team could go 4–0 the rest of the way. “You better call Lloyds of London for the odds on that one,” he said. “We have as good a chance to win them all as to lose them all.”
⁷