Joe Tucker & CBS Indifference to the Steelers

[LeonardRachiele]

As I stated CBS' hostility to Joe Tucker was evident in some additional ways.

From 1964 to 1967 CBS telecasted the program Countdown to Kickoff. This was on Saturdays at 4 o'clock, the day before the game. They visited the cities and teams where the game was to be played. The network used Johnny Sauer, the Pittsburgh play analyst, rather than Mr. Tucker.

As I indicated, the Steelers had a two years hiatus with NBC 1960-1961. Channel 11, the NBC affiliate in Pittsburgh, televised these games. A real novelty was the television of exhibition games back to Pittsburgh. After the Steelers returned to CBS Channel 2 , there was no television of exhibitions. KDKA carried these regular season games from the CBS contract with the NFL.

There was one televised exhibition game in 1964 and one televised regular season game each year. Channel 11 pickup these games on local television. In August of 1964, the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers 24 to 13 at Hershey, PA. Starting in 1963, on the first Saturday night of October, the Steelers played at Cleveland, generally this was the fourth game of the season.