The '63 Steelers (39 page)

The day after the tie with the Bears, as Washington laid President Kennedy to rest, Pittsburgh and the rest of the nation ground to a halt. The players were off, except for those needing treatment, and the Steeler offices were closed. Clendon Thomas had X-rays of his jaw. Bob Schmitz had hurt his ankle. Myron Pottios had dislocated his left hand early in the game, had it put back in place, and returned to action.

In downtown Pittsburgh, and across the country, government offices, banks, schools, businesses and stores closed down—“virtually every facet of a city's lifeblood.” The window of a Fifth Avenue dress shop in downtown Pittsburgh displayed a portrait of Kennedy with the inscription “We mourn, with all.”
Post Gazette
entertainment columnist Harold V. Cohen wrote that he had “no heart this morning for the trivia of show business. … For nearly 72 hours, the world has stood still under a black crepe hung from the trackless wastes of the moon.” There was almost no traffic downtown. Churches were “overflowing” with parishioners. Every kind of store sported “closed” signs. Governor Scranton asked that all citizens pause at the stroke of noon. The Council of Churches of the Pittsburgh Area suggested that church bells toll for ten minutes at noon. In the mills, steelworkers doffed their hardhats and paused in silence.
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In the aftermath of President Kennedy's death, in the sports world, attention returned to the games, and there was still grumbling over the refereeing in the Steelers-Bears contest. “It's hard to figure how the officials can blow a quick whistle on Dick Hoak and then a slow whistle on Mike Ditka,” one “top college official” was quoted as saying. Jack Sell, Steeler beat writer
for the
Post-Gazette
, commented that since former Notre Dame coach Joe Kuharich had taken over the supervision of NFL referees, “officiating seems to be getting worse each week.”
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On Tuesday, the second day off for the players, the Steelers were scheduled to participate in a league drawing for playoff possibilities among the contending teams if any ties resulted in the final regular-season standings. The Giants, Browns, and Cardinals, all with 8–3 records (a .727 winning percentage), were locked in a tie for first place in the Eastern Conference, with the Steelers 6–3–2 (.667) right behind them. The Bears were alone in first place in the Western Conference at 9–1–1 (.900), trailed by the Packers at 9–2 (.818). Commissioner Pete Rozelle determined that there were ten potential playoff possibilities in the Eastern Conference—including four scenarios in the event of a three-way tie—and one playoff possibility in the Western Conference. Winning percentages, not most victories, determined the conference winners. Because ties were thrown out, the Steelers could finish 9–3–2 (.750) by winning their last three games and finish first if New York, Cleveland, and St. Louis each lost a game, which would leave them all 10–4, a winning percentage of .714. The Cards and Browns were scheduled to face each other so, barring a tie, one part of the equation would come true. The scenario shaped up as a long shot all right, but the Steelers had already defied the odds to get this far.
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College football had its own reassessment to make because of postponements after the assassination of the president. On Tuesday, while Pete Rose was named National League rookie of the year, it was announced that the Army-Navy game would be rescheduled for December 7. Pitt athletic director Frank Carver explained that the Panthers' bowl prospects looked shaky, with the Orange and Cotton bowls reduced to outside chances, but the Gator Bowl remained a possibility. Carver reiterated a point on the university's postponement of the scheduled November 23 game with Penn State: “I am certain now that we did the right thing.”
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The Steelers held a practice at South Park Thanksgiving morning. Even though they were listed as thirteen-point favorites over the Eagles, Buddy Parker fretted. “Those Eagles will be rough on Sunday,” he said. Philadelphia quarterback Sonny Jurgensen had been hampered by a shoulder injury for five weeks, but it appeared he would be ready for Pittsburgh. “Doesn't it beat all how everybody gets well just before they play us,” Parker said.
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In the opener against Pittsburgh, Jurgensen was sixteen of twenty-six for 322 yards, three touchdowns, and two interceptions. “The robust redhead
from Duke is still the best passer in the NFL and poses a constant threat every time he throws the ball,” wrote Pat Livingston of the
Press
.
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The Eagles' defense had finally gotten healthy too. Defensive end Bill Quinlan, who had played in only four games because of a pinched nerve in his neck, had returned the previous week and teamed up with Steeler castoff George Tarasovic to give the Eagles “their most aggressive defense of the season.”
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But the Eagles were swirling in turmoil. There was speculation that head coach Nick Skorich would lose his job and rumors that the team would be put up for sale, for $5 million, within a week or two. The unrest had started back in preseason. Jurgensen and his backup, King Hill, had left training camp because of contract disputes. Jurgensen wanted $30,000, an increase of approximately $5,000 from 1962; King was resisting a cut from the $25,000 he had made.

But the ugliest, most disturbing evidence of the dissension that was wracking the club could be observed behind closed doors in a virtual duel between two players the day after the Kennedy assassination, and the story was not fully detailed until two weeks afterward. It was “the most violent episode in the history of the National Football League,” columnist Milton Gross wrote in a vivid account of the incident.
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The Eagles, who were opposed to playing in the aftermath of the assassination, met at the Sheraton Motor Inn in Philadelphia to vote on whether or not to donate money to the widow of J. D. Tippit, the Dallas policeman shot and killed before the capture of Lee Harvey Oswald. “The game wouldn't have to be played if it wasn't for Pete Rozelle, that guinea,” Gross quoted Quinlan as saying. Rozelle was not of Italian heritage, but defensive back Ben Scotti was, and he objected to the epithet. “Cut it out or there'll be trouble,” he said.

Quinlan repeated the slur then backed off, but his roommate, 260-pound center John Mellekas, kept provoking the 184-pound Scotti. “You want to fight?” Scotti said. “I'll fight you right here in front of the team.”

“Anywhere you want,” Mellekas replied, “but not in here. I'll take you outside.”

After the meeting ended, the two went to a private lounge, locked the door, “and went at it.” Much later, Scotti told Gross, “He must have thought he was King Kong that night, but when I was through with him they must have thought he was hit by a freight train.”

“It must have been a dilly of a fight,” the
Philadelphia Inquirer
reported.
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Afterward, Mellekas lay unconscious, with a broken nose, black eyes, and “teeth strewn with blood.” Scotti stood over him, both hands bleeding extensively from lacerations caused by punching his teammate “into oblivion.” Scotti needed fifteen stitches on his left hand, broke his right hand, and nearly severed his right ring finger on Mellekas's teeth.
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The slurs triggered the fight, but Scotti's rage ran deeper, far out of bounds. “I let my anger of the whole year and everything else out on him,” he said. “I knocked him down and I stood over him and worked him over.” Mellekas's head was so swollen, Scotti said, “he could hardly put on his helmet.”
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Both men were hospitalized. Mellekas was fined but returned to play. Scotti was suspended and, finally, released even though Mellekas apologized and stood up for his teammate. In conclusion, said Scotti, “This is an emotional game, you know.”
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In a bloody instant, Skorich not only had another controversy to deal with, but from a sheerly pragmatic perspective, he no longer had a healthy defense to confront a team rated two touchdowns better.

Sunday brought windy weather and snow flurries, marking autumn's end and ushering in winter. The newspapers were still filled with news about the reverberations of Kennedy's death. The Warren Commission was beginning its investigation into the assassination. In Dallas, where the Steelers would play the next week, one of the notes amid the wreaths at the site of the slaying read, “God Forgive Us All.”
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But life went on, with other news signaling the changing times. A government study was about to be released that linked smoking to cancer. The papers were filling up with Christmas ads and holiday recipes. The
Pittsburgh Press
ran a feature with a photo of four shaggy-haired musicians, titled “The Beatles … Britain's Latest Craze.” The story noted that the group had gone from making about $50 a week to $14,000 by using “three amplified guitars, bellowing voices and a drum that beats hard and fast, like a human heart heading for sudden failure.” Steeler fans undoubtedly felt the same sensation after the close calls of the previous three weeks, with more suspense in store. “I've never seen a race this close,” Parker said, “and I've been connected with this league for the last 30 years.”
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The Steelers needed 17,000 fans to set a home attendance record, but a “half-frozen throng” of only 16,721 turned out for the final home game in “that ancient rookery, Forbes Field.”
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Who among them knew—or even cared—that the dilapidated structure in which Johnny “Blood” McNally, Byron “Whizzer” White, and Bobby Layne had performed was about to host a Steeler game for the final time? On this chilly afternoon, there was
no crooked upright as there had been in the opener, but the game would seem eerily similar to the one three months earlier.

With less than five minutes left, the Eagles looked poised to salvage something from their misbegotten season and ruin the Steelers. With Hill playing instead of Jurgensen, and with a defense revamped because of the Scotti-Mellekas fight, Philadelphia held a 20–10 lead. After the game, Parker would be sipping a cup of coffee, shaking his head. “We gave them everything,” he said. “Nobody but us hurts us.”
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Layne, phoning down information from the scouting booth, watched as Ed Brown threw for two touchdowns and 243 yards but hit only thirteen of thirty-one passes and had four interceptions. “How can you get so far behind?” he would later ask Parker.
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The Steelers had a tendency to do that. The teams chugged through a scoreless first period. On their first possession, the Eagles moved to the Steeler 35 on a 17-yard pass to Pete Retzlaff, but on the next play Tommy McDonald was called for pushing, moving the Eagles back to midfield. On third-and-13 at the Steeler 38, Andy Russell intercepted Hill. Russell fumbled on his return, but rookie teammate Frank Atkinson recovered at the 37.

As the period wound down, Pittsburgh started on its 20 after a Hill punt into the end zone. Brown hit Preston Carpenter for a 23-yard gain on the first play of the second quarter. Brown missed Ballman, but pass interference on Irv Cross put Pittsburgh on the Eagle 30. John Henry Johnson and Hoak crunched yardage to give the Steelers second-and-goal at the 1, but Hoak fumbled for a yard loss and Johnson was stopped cold on third down. Parker played it safe and sent in Lou Michaels for a 10-yard field goal with 6:19 elapsed in the quarter.

But soon “disaster hit.”
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Pittsburgh forced the Eagles to punt, but on third-and-9 Brown missed Dial and middle linebacker Dave Lloyd made the first of his two interceptions and returned the ball 11 yards to the Steeler 24. Years later, defensive back Dick Haley would be asked about the toughest receivers he had ever faced. It wasn't McDonald or Bobby Mitchell or Del Shofner. It was the man one football guide referred to as the Eagles' “blond adonis of an end.”
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“The most difficult and best guy in the league then, I thought, was Pete Retzlaff,” Haley said. “I thought Retzlaff was phenomenal at that time.”
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Retzlaff had the speed to play split end, but Skorich moved him to tight end after Retzlaff sustained a broken arm in '62. On first down, he got behind Haley in the right corner of the end zone and caught Hill's pass to put Philly ahead 7–3.

On the kickoff, Gary Ballman, the hero in Washington, fumbled and rookie linebacker Lee Roy Caffey recovered for the Eagles on the 14. On the first play, Tim Brown made a terrific individual effort, first shaking off John Reger, then slipping away as Clendon Thomas hit him low on the left side and Haley grabbed his shoulders from the right, and finally hurtling sideways 5 yards and over the goal line for the touchdown. It took just forty seconds for the Eagles to grab a 14–3 lead with 4:39 left in the half.

The Eagles forced a punt, and their lead looked secure even after Thomas made an interception at the Steeler 43 with seven seconds left before halftime. Ed Brown took one last shot, heaving a pass down the left sideline for Dial, who was covered by Don Burroughs. At the 2-yard line, “Dial made a miraculous catch of the ball” around the 10, “stumbled like a drunkard into the end zone,” and fell flat on his back.
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Burroughs immediately leaned over and pointed to a spot along the chalk around the 2.

Of all the players in the NFL, Burroughs was perhaps the last one the officials wanted to hear voice any comments about a ruling—or nonruling. After the season-opening tie with Pittsburgh, Burroughs, angered at being denied a fumble recovery by a whistle during the final series of the game, chased the officials across the field and accosted field judge Dan Tehan. The next day, Rozelle suspended the Eagle safety for one game for grabbing or shoving Tehan and for accidentally striking referee Bill Downes in the face. Burroughs issued a prompt apology.