This story about the first victory -- and second game -- the by the Pirates, later to become the Pittsburgh Steelers, appeared in The Pittsburgh Press on Sept. 28, 1933.

Pittsburgh Pro Eleven Gives Cardinals Two Touchdowns, Then Fights From Behind in Game That Has 6,000 Wild

It was about the time that Dewey was steaming into Manila -- give or take a year -- that old Mose Kelsch tucked a football under his arm, set his lean-jowled jaw and first poked his head through a scrimmage line.

Maybe it was a little later, but all the city's patriarchs will swear that the name of Kelsch has been in lineups as long as they can remember and that there isn't a sandlot gridiron in Western Pennsylvania that doesn't bear the imprint of old Mose's cleats.

Everybody wondered why they took an old Mose as a member of the squad when the Pirate professional footballers were recruited. There was no college degree hanging on his wall at home, no All-America insignia dangling from the watch chain that spans his ample middle. At Forbes Field last night they found out why. Old Mose has a degree. It's B.P.K. -- Bachelor of Placement Kicking -- and Mose is a post-graduate!

Then Out Comes Mose

Twice Mose waddled out on the field. He wore no helmet and his bald head waggled and his double chin quivered as his teammates clustered around him, patted him on his broad back and shouted in his ear to "make that kick good!"

Twice old Mose "made that kick" with a slow, deliberate sweep of his ponderous right leg and the two points he scored, coming on top of the two touchdowns that fell to the Pirates, enabled the Canary shirts to edge out the Chicago Cardinals, 14 to 13.

More than 6,000 spectators, who guessed correctly that the early-evening downpour would stop before the opening kickoff, worked themselves into a literal lather during the entire 60 minutes of a game that for sheer thrills and jig-saw action has seldom been equaled in Pittsburgh these last few years.

Cards Grab Big Lead

They saw the Cardinals, led by Joe Lillard, Oregon's famous Negro back, pick up two touchdowns and then give way before the superior staying qualities of the Pirates. The path of the only Cardinal who might have had a chance to overtake him. This was the signal for the debut of Old Mose Kelsch.

The final touchdown, as the game was dying, was made possible when Mike Koken fumbled and the Pirates recovered on the Cardinal 18. Tanguay whipped a pass to Moss for 14 yards and then, having lost five yards on an ill-timed substitution penalty, the same pair repeated, Moss leaping high into the air for the ball behind the uprights.

Back came Mose and you know the story from there.

Add to all that Lillard's returns of punts for 44 and 22 yards, Jimmy Clark's run of 30, 20 and 19 yards and a 59-yard gain on a forward pass from Holm to Angelo Brovelli and you have a game that at times took on all the movement of a Caribbean hurricane on the loose.

And that's just the kind of a cat and dog fight it was.