It is now — literally — half a lifetime ago for the 46-year-old Charlie Batch. But what began as an eager opportunity for a rookie NFL quarterback to face his hometown team on national television turned into one of the quirkiest and infamous memorable moments in Thanksgiving football history.

“People remember that game — sometimes they forget what team I was on then — but they bring up that game and remember it,” Batch said, “because of the coin flip.”

Yes, the coin flip. The one that Batch now proudly recognizes as the final coin flip in NFL history that featured a “heads/tails” call while the coin was in the air. An immediate tweak to the rule after the Nov. 26, 1998, game at the Pontiac Silverdome meant that the visiting team’s captain must make a heads/tails call before the referee tosses the coin.

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Of course, that’s because of what happened that day at the outset of overtime between the Detroit Lions and Pittsburgh Steelers. Steelers captain Jerome Bettis maintained he called “tails,” but referee Phil Luckett heard, “heads-tails,” so he stuck with what he says Bettis first called.

In those days, overtime was sudden death. So, the Lions took the ball and drove 41 yards to get Jason Hanson in place for a winning 42-yard field goal without the Steelers even having a chance.

Because, of course, of the coin-flip call fiasco.

“I always talk to (Bettis) about it,” Batch said last year in recalling the game. “He laughs and he is sticking with his guns. Whatever. Whether that was ‘heads-tails,’ he said he called ‘tails,’ either way. He is sticking with that.”

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A Munhall native and Steel Valley High School graduate, Batch has been associated with the Steelers for the past two decades as a backup quarterback (2002-2012) and television/radio analyst (2013-present).

But in 1998, he was a second-round pick of the Lions out of nearby Eastern Michigan. The chance to start in in a high-profile, annually-anticipated game against the team he grew up rooting for made for a memorable day for Batch, who recalled having more than 100 friends and family members in attendance for the game.

Some family, he said, even bit the proverbial bullet and stayed back at Batch’s Detroit apartment preparing Thanksgiving dinner, the first Batch would enjoy as a professional athlete. It also would be a celebratory meal as he was a winner as an NFL starting quarterback for the fifth time, going 16 for 23 for 236 yards, a touchdown and no interceptions in the victory.

“It was a big deal,” Batch recalled. “No. 1, being from Pittsburgh, I am like, ‘Wow, I am really playing against the Steelers right now, this is crazy.’ So, that was a weird moment. ‘Wow, I am really in the NFL right now.’

“A lot of that was more for pregame, coming out seeing (then-Steelers coach Bill Cowher), seeing (linebacker) Levon Kirkland, Jerome, (quarterback Kordell Stewart), all of these guys that you grew up kind of watching. (Linebacker) Jason Gildon. ‘Man, this is pretty cool.’”

Even cooler when you earn bragging rights — cooler still, when you join said hometown team a few years later, and several of the vanquished parties endured as part of the organization.

— Charlie Batch (@CharlieBatch16) November 14, 2021

“Cowher always remembered that game,” said Batch, who is heavily involved in local philanthropic efforts through his nonprofit Best of the Batch foundation. “Especially when I would run into him over the next couple of years, he would always bring that up. And when I became a member of the Steelers he would always bring that up, ‘That doggone Thanksgiving game!’ And we would laugh about it.

“The coolest part is every time the Steelers played the Lions, I get a chance every four years to tell that story, or at least post a picture of handing the ball off to Barry Sanders and say how ‘it’s been X amount of years since the Lions have beat the Steelers, and I was the last quarterback to beat them.

“I was able to say ‘it was 19 years since the Lions beat the Steelers’ (the most recent time the teams met in Detroit) and then when (the Lions) lost now I get a chance (this year) to post that picture, ‘Oh, it was (23) years since the Lions last beat the Steelers, and oh, ‘Guess who the quarterback of that team was?’ So it gives me a chance to always be able to tell that story.”

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