1
00:00:11,280 --> 00:00:14,600
Speaker 1: So finally it was time. And I swear I remember

2
00:00:14,720 --> 00:00:18,000
Speaker 1: standing outside waiting for the trucks, and it was dark,

3
00:00:18,040 --> 00:00:21,919
Speaker 1: and it was snowing, And when that first truck, when

4
00:00:22,040 --> 00:00:25,080
Speaker 1: the first gear and owen smells back then you had

5
00:00:25,079 --> 00:00:27,720
Speaker 1: to climb a big hill to get through our parking

6
00:00:27,760 --> 00:00:32,559
Speaker 1: lot and the complex, And I said, my god, the

7
00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:34,279
Speaker 1: whole state of Maryland.

8
00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:34,559
Speaker 2: Could hear that.

9
00:00:43,159 --> 00:00:46,600
Speaker 3: The day is Wednesday, March twenty eighth, nineteen eighty four.

10
00:00:47,159 --> 00:00:51,440
Speaker 3: It's a cold, wat dark night in Owings Mills, Maryland.

11
00:00:52,080 --> 00:00:54,560
Speaker 3: The last of the Baltimore Colts front office staff has

12
00:00:54,640 --> 00:00:57,480
Speaker 3: gone home for the night. Only a few people remain

13
00:00:57,560 --> 00:01:01,440
Speaker 3: in the team's complex, and they're take everything off the walls,

14
00:01:01,720 --> 00:01:05,240
Speaker 3: shoveling whatever they can into boxes, and under the cover

15
00:01:05,319 --> 00:01:10,720
Speaker 3: of secrecy, working to move an NFL franchise. As a

16
00:01:10,760 --> 00:01:15,080
Speaker 3: snowy darkness envelops this Baltimore suburb, those famous trucks pull

17
00:01:15,200 --> 00:01:18,720
Speaker 3: up the image of those green trailers with the yellow

18
00:01:18,800 --> 00:01:22,160
Speaker 3: logo of a ship, the Mayflower, are still seared in

19
00:01:22,200 --> 00:01:25,880
Speaker 3: the mines of Baltimoreans old enough to remember the night

20
00:01:25,959 --> 00:01:30,160
Speaker 3: their team left the Mayflower. Moving vans were haphazardly and

21
00:01:30,280 --> 00:01:33,200
Speaker 3: quickly loaded up throughout the night, then one by one,

22
00:01:33,240 --> 00:01:36,640
Speaker 3: as dawn broke, they left, taking the Colts with them

23
00:01:37,120 --> 00:01:41,399
Speaker 3: to Indianapolis. While the Colts had been rumored to be

24
00:01:41,440 --> 00:01:44,160
Speaker 3: looking to leave Baltimore for years leading up to nineteen

25
00:01:44,200 --> 00:01:47,760
Speaker 3: eighty four, the clandestine speed with which they exited the

26
00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:52,520
Speaker 3: mid Atlantic was absolutely a surprise. Matt Boza was a

27
00:01:52,520 --> 00:01:54,600
Speaker 3: wide receiver for the Colts at the time, and he

28
00:01:54,680 --> 00:01:57,480
Speaker 3: was back home in Walnut Creek, California, when he popped

29
00:01:57,520 --> 00:01:59,520
Speaker 3: on a sports only news channel that was still in

30
00:01:59,520 --> 00:02:02,880
Speaker 3: its infants, only to find out he'd be living somewhere else.

31
00:02:02,880 --> 00:02:05,560
Speaker 4: In that fall, ESPN was just getting gone, and I

32
00:02:05,600 --> 00:02:08,079
Speaker 4: think Chris Berman, you know, had a full head of hair,

33
00:02:08,120 --> 00:02:11,000
Speaker 4: and he was doing his ESPN broadcast and they showed

34
00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:14,160
Speaker 4: the Mayflower vans pulling out in the middle of the night,

35
00:02:14,919 --> 00:02:16,600
Speaker 4: and I had to do a double take, and I

36
00:02:16,680 --> 00:02:18,480
Speaker 4: was like, wait a minute.

37
00:02:18,840 --> 00:02:21,840
Speaker 3: You've probably seen the images of Mayflower vans pulling out

38
00:02:21,880 --> 00:02:24,440
Speaker 3: of the Colts Complex and Owens Mills that night, are

39
00:02:24,560 --> 00:02:27,840
Speaker 3: rolling into Indianapolis the next day as Mayor Bill Hudnutt

40
00:02:27,880 --> 00:02:31,280
Speaker 3: triumphantly waved them on. You might remember the glory days

41
00:02:31,320 --> 00:02:33,280
Speaker 3: of the Baltimore Colts are going to games at the

42
00:02:33,320 --> 00:02:35,760
Speaker 3: Hoosier Dome. You might have only become a Colts fan

43
00:02:35,800 --> 00:02:40,560
Speaker 3: after Peyton Manning got to Indianapolis. I'm Jj Sankowitz, team writer,

44
00:02:40,840 --> 00:02:45,280
Speaker 3: podcast host, and stadiumpa announcer for the Indianapolis Colts, and

45
00:02:45,320 --> 00:02:47,239
Speaker 3: I set out to explore the answer to a question,

46
00:02:47,400 --> 00:02:49,880
Speaker 3: one which I've wondered for a while. Why are the

47
00:02:49,919 --> 00:02:53,200
Speaker 3: Colts here in Indianapolis. I'm excited to share what I

48
00:02:53,240 --> 00:02:55,600
Speaker 3: found with you over the course of four episodes of

49
00:02:55,639 --> 00:02:59,560
Speaker 3: the Move podcast here on the Colts Audio Network, because

50
00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:01,919
Speaker 3: the story of why the Coults are here in Indianapolis

51
00:03:01,919 --> 00:03:05,000
Speaker 3: and have been for forty years is not your run

52
00:03:05,040 --> 00:03:07,919
Speaker 3: of the mill tale of an American sports franchise picking

53
00:03:08,040 --> 00:03:10,320
Speaker 3: up and leaving. This is a story of how a

54
00:03:10,360 --> 00:03:13,000
Speaker 3: football team that ran through the fabric of one city

55
00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:16,839
Speaker 3: became a driving force of civic pride in another. This

56
00:03:16,919 --> 00:03:20,240
Speaker 3: is a story of political intrigue, political failings, and political

57
00:03:20,360 --> 00:03:23,799
Speaker 3: risk taking. This is a story of a crumbling stadium

58
00:03:24,200 --> 00:03:27,560
Speaker 3: and a brand new dome. This is a story of

59
00:03:27,680 --> 00:03:32,120
Speaker 3: loss and gain. This is the story of why the

60
00:03:32,120 --> 00:03:35,560
Speaker 3: Colts left Baltimore, why they wound up in Indianapolis.

61
00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:36,280
Speaker 5: And why.

62
00:03:36,320 --> 00:03:40,000
Speaker 3: Maybe the most infamous move in American professional sports history

63
00:03:40,400 --> 00:03:43,320
Speaker 3: happened in the middle of the night on March twenty eighth,

64
00:03:43,640 --> 00:03:44,600
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty four.

65
00:03:44,920 --> 00:03:47,120
Speaker 6: I saw my father cry twice in his life. My

66
00:03:47,160 --> 00:03:49,280
Speaker 6: father was born in nineteen nineteen. He died in ninety two.

67
00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:51,440
Speaker 6: I saw him cry when his sister died, and I

68
00:03:51,440 --> 00:03:53,720
Speaker 6: saw him cry when the Colts left town.

69
00:03:53,880 --> 00:03:57,760
Speaker 7: When the Colts arrived, it was as if Indianapolis had arrived.

70
00:03:58,240 --> 00:04:10,720
Speaker 3: This is episode one of the Move Baltimore. The history

71
00:04:10,720 --> 00:04:13,480
Speaker 3: of the Baltimore Colts is deeply entwined with the fabric

72
00:04:13,520 --> 00:04:16,160
Speaker 3: of the city of Baltimore. After World War Two, Baltimore

73
00:04:16,200 --> 00:04:19,080
Speaker 3: was one of the United States most populated cities. It

74
00:04:19,160 --> 00:04:22,719
Speaker 3: crested nine hundred thousand residents by nineteen fifty, making it

75
00:04:22,760 --> 00:04:26,039
Speaker 3: the sixth most populated American city at the time. But

76
00:04:26,120 --> 00:04:27,880
Speaker 3: it also didn't have the prestige that came with the

77
00:04:27,880 --> 00:04:30,880
Speaker 3: top flight baseball or football team, and despite its size

78
00:04:30,880 --> 00:04:33,720
Speaker 3: and importance to America's economy, it was a largely forgotten

79
00:04:33,800 --> 00:04:35,200
Speaker 3: metropolis on the East Coast.

80
00:04:35,600 --> 00:04:40,120
Speaker 8: We were a whistle stop between New York and Marshington,

81
00:04:40,200 --> 00:04:40,480
Speaker 8: d C.

82
00:04:41,080 --> 00:04:43,479
Speaker 3: That's John ziemon A Baltimore native whose knowledge of and

83
00:04:43,560 --> 00:04:45,120
Speaker 3: love for his city run deep.

84
00:04:45,520 --> 00:04:49,479
Speaker 8: You just went through Baltimore. You didn't stop unless you

85
00:04:49,520 --> 00:04:51,400
Speaker 8: want to grab, you know, some seafood.

86
00:04:51,520 --> 00:04:52,320
Speaker 5: But that was it.

87
00:04:52,880 --> 00:04:56,159
Speaker 3: On December twenty eighth, nineteen forty six, the bankrupt Miami

88
00:04:56,200 --> 00:04:58,600
Speaker 3: Seahawks of the All America Football Conference, which was then

89
00:04:58,640 --> 00:05:01,159
Speaker 3: a challenger of the National Football League, were purchased and

90
00:05:01,200 --> 00:05:04,520
Speaker 3: relocated to Baltimore. Baltimore had been trying and would continue

91
00:05:04,520 --> 00:05:07,200
Speaker 3: to try to get an NFL team, but according to Zeman,

92
00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:09,600
Speaker 3: they were blocked by their powerful neighbors to the south

93
00:05:09,600 --> 00:05:12,280
Speaker 3: in Washington, d C. Washington, DC, of course, had the

94
00:05:12,360 --> 00:05:15,360
Speaker 3: NFL's Redskins they arrived in nineteen thirty seven, and they

95
00:05:15,360 --> 00:05:17,640
Speaker 3: had Major League Baseball Senators, a charter member of the

96
00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:20,280
Speaker 3: American League in nineteen oh one. So Baltimore was left

97
00:05:20,279 --> 00:05:21,960
Speaker 3: to prove to the rest of the sports world their

98
00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:24,839
Speaker 3: ability to support a franchise in such close proximity to

99
00:05:24,839 --> 00:05:28,440
Speaker 3: the country's capital, despite the two cities having completely different

100
00:05:28,480 --> 00:05:31,320
Speaker 3: cultural vibes. When Baltimore finally got their shot with the

101
00:05:31,360 --> 00:05:34,120
Speaker 3: Miami Seahawks in nineteen forty six, a contest was held

102
00:05:34,160 --> 00:05:36,680
Speaker 3: to name the team the winning suggestion came from a

103
00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:39,920
Speaker 3: man named Charles Evans of Middle River, Maryland. The team

104
00:05:39,960 --> 00:05:42,839
Speaker 3: would be named the Colts owing to the annual Preakness

105
00:05:42,880 --> 00:05:47,160
Speaker 3: Stakes in Baltimore. Wearing green and silver uniforms YEP, green

106
00:05:47,240 --> 00:05:50,040
Speaker 3: and silver, the Colts played three seasons in the All

107
00:05:50,080 --> 00:05:53,440
Speaker 3: America Football Conference. They drew massive crowds, including one of

108
00:05:53,480 --> 00:05:56,120
Speaker 3: over fifty one thousand in a game in nineteen forty seven,

109
00:05:56,240 --> 00:05:59,840
Speaker 3: and the Colt Band was established, proving Baltimore could absolutely

110
00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:04,680
Speaker 3: support professional sports. In nineteen fifty, the AAFC and NFL merged,

111
00:06:04,800 --> 00:06:07,080
Speaker 3: with the Colts joining the NFL and playing in the

112
00:06:07,120 --> 00:06:11,240
Speaker 3: newly reconstructed Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. For the first time,

113
00:06:11,440 --> 00:06:14,120
Speaker 3: Baltimore had a major American sports franchise.

114
00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:16,560
Speaker 8: We are in the All American Conference from forty seven,

115
00:06:16,720 --> 00:06:20,120
Speaker 8: forty eight and forty nine, major support. Fifty we went

116
00:06:20,160 --> 00:06:23,680
Speaker 8: into the NFL into the fifty season. They withdrew the

117
00:06:23,720 --> 00:06:25,719
Speaker 8: team and that heard Baltimore so much.

118
00:06:26,279 --> 00:06:26,479
Speaker 5: Yes.

119
00:06:26,560 --> 00:06:29,839
Speaker 3: Baltimore's first foreign into the NFL was short lived. Despite

120
00:06:29,880 --> 00:06:32,720
Speaker 3: the local support, the franchise's financial situation was dire and

121
00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:36,359
Speaker 3: the NFL dissolved the franchise, but the Colt band stayed together,

122
00:06:36,680 --> 00:06:40,000
Speaker 3: continuing to quite literally drum up support for football in Baltimore.

123
00:06:40,440 --> 00:06:43,440
Speaker 3: In nineteen fifty two, NFL Commissioner Burt Bell challenged Baltimore

124
00:06:43,480 --> 00:06:46,640
Speaker 3: to sell fifteen thousand season tickets within six weeks if

125
00:06:46,640 --> 00:06:49,600
Speaker 3: they wanted to secure an NFL franchise. That mark was

126
00:06:49,640 --> 00:06:51,960
Speaker 3: hit in a little over four weeks, and in nineteen

127
00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:56,280
Speaker 3: fifty three Carol Rosenbloom purchased the Dallas Texans, who were

128
00:06:56,440 --> 00:06:59,840
Speaker 3: blue and white, not green and silver, and moved that

129
00:07:00,400 --> 00:07:03,919
Speaker 3: to Baltimore. The name Colts stayed, as did the Texans

130
00:07:03,960 --> 00:07:06,560
Speaker 3: blue and white colors, and in nineteen fifty three the

131
00:07:06,640 --> 00:07:10,520
Speaker 3: Baltimore Colts began playing in the NFL, this time for good.

132
00:07:11,240 --> 00:07:12,880
Speaker 3: An upper deck was built at the Colts home of

133
00:07:12,920 --> 00:07:16,600
Speaker 3: Memorial Stadium to accommodate the intense fan interest. The Colts

134
00:07:16,640 --> 00:07:18,880
Speaker 3: were the first NFL team to form a fan club,

135
00:07:18,960 --> 00:07:21,840
Speaker 3: the Colts Corral, and to have cheerleaders, and a year

136
00:07:21,960 --> 00:07:31,000
Speaker 3: later the Colts got a roommate. By the nineteen fifties,

137
00:07:31,040 --> 00:07:33,080
Speaker 3: the city of Saint Louis was unable to support two

138
00:07:33,120 --> 00:07:36,240
Speaker 3: baseball teams. The Cardinals were by far the more popular club,

139
00:07:36,320 --> 00:07:39,160
Speaker 3: so the city's other team, a Browns, packed up and

140
00:07:39,240 --> 00:07:42,640
Speaker 3: moved to Baltimore in nineteen fifty four, sharing Memorial Stadium

141
00:07:42,720 --> 00:07:45,840
Speaker 3: with the Colts. Ironically enough, it wasn't the last time

142
00:07:45,880 --> 00:07:48,440
Speaker 3: Baltimore had gained a team named the Browns and renamed

143
00:07:48,440 --> 00:07:49,400
Speaker 3: them after a bird.

144
00:07:49,600 --> 00:07:52,679
Speaker 9: And the arrival of the Orioles. It was Baltimore's arrival

145
00:07:52,840 --> 00:07:55,880
Speaker 9: on the stage with these big cities, because now we

146
00:07:56,080 --> 00:07:57,960
Speaker 9: had something we could put up against New York.

147
00:07:58,080 --> 00:08:00,600
Speaker 3: Jerry Sandusky is the voice of the Baltimore He's a

148
00:08:00,640 --> 00:08:03,120
Speaker 3: Baltimore native and he's well versed in the history of

149
00:08:03,160 --> 00:08:03,520
Speaker 3: his city.

150
00:08:03,640 --> 00:08:06,040
Speaker 9: We couldn't put a population up against New York. We

151
00:08:06,120 --> 00:08:09,360
Speaker 9: couldn't put up geography against Philadelphia. We certainly couldn't put

152
00:08:09,400 --> 00:08:12,560
Speaker 9: international impact up against Washington d C. But we could

153
00:08:12,600 --> 00:08:15,680
Speaker 9: put a team up against those and we could win.

154
00:08:15,960 --> 00:08:20,200
Speaker 9: And that made Baltimore feel like, hey, we belong in

155
00:08:20,320 --> 00:08:22,560
Speaker 9: this league with all of these giant figures.

156
00:08:22,800 --> 00:08:24,800
Speaker 3: You have to remember, back in the mid nineteen fifties,

157
00:08:24,840 --> 00:08:27,320
Speaker 3: the NFL was straining to gain a foothold against the

158
00:08:27,440 --> 00:08:30,760
Speaker 3: behemoth national pastime of Major League Baseball. Getting the Colts

159
00:08:30,880 --> 00:08:33,199
Speaker 3: was a big deal, but getting the Orioles that was

160
00:08:33,240 --> 00:08:36,040
Speaker 3: a game changer. With the Colts and Orioles putting down roots,

161
00:08:36,120 --> 00:08:39,520
Speaker 3: Baltimore measured its blue collar, working class, big butts small

162
00:08:39,559 --> 00:08:43,520
Speaker 3: town attitude against the most powerful cities on the East Coast.

163
00:08:44,040 --> 00:08:46,079
Speaker 3: Neither team was very good early on, but in nineteen

164
00:08:46,160 --> 00:08:49,160
Speaker 3: fifty five, a kid from Arkansas named Brooks Robinson began

165
00:08:49,240 --> 00:08:51,400
Speaker 3: to man the hot corner for the Orioles, and a

166
00:08:51,520 --> 00:08:54,960
Speaker 3: year later the guy had become Baltimore's other central sports figure,

167
00:08:55,080 --> 00:08:58,280
Speaker 3: arrived after being cut by the Steelers and making six

168
00:08:58,360 --> 00:09:00,800
Speaker 3: bucks a game for a semi professional team in his

169
00:09:00,920 --> 00:09:01,800
Speaker 3: native Pittsburgh.

170
00:09:01,920 --> 00:09:04,640
Speaker 8: Now Johnny United is there's a haircut you could set

171
00:09:04,679 --> 00:09:05,280
Speaker 8: your watch too.

172
00:09:05,720 --> 00:09:09,559
Speaker 3: The Colts had success first, Johnny U was an instant revelation,

173
00:09:09,840 --> 00:09:12,600
Speaker 3: leading the NFL in touchdowns in nineteen fifty seven, nineteen

174
00:09:12,640 --> 00:09:16,600
Speaker 3: fifty eight, nineteen fifty nine and nineteen sixty. Unitis paired

175
00:09:16,640 --> 00:09:19,400
Speaker 3: with budding and established stars like halfback Le Anymore, full

176
00:09:19,480 --> 00:09:22,800
Speaker 3: back Allenimichi, receiver Raymond Berry, left tackle Jim Parker, and

177
00:09:22,960 --> 00:09:26,000
Speaker 3: defensive tackle Art Donovan, and the Colts quickly became one

178
00:09:26,040 --> 00:09:28,600
Speaker 3: of the NFL's best teams by the late nineteen fifties

179
00:09:29,440 --> 00:09:32,319
Speaker 3: and In nineteen fifty eight, Baltimore, with its shipyards and

180
00:09:32,400 --> 00:09:35,640
Speaker 3: factories and fishermen, finally had its chance to go up

181
00:09:35,640 --> 00:09:38,840
Speaker 3: against New York celebrities, Broadway stars, and cavalcade of American

182
00:09:38,880 --> 00:09:42,360
Speaker 3: sports legends. The nineteen fifty eight NFL Championship was the

183
00:09:42,440 --> 00:09:44,200
Speaker 3: Colts against the New York Giants.

184
00:09:44,240 --> 00:09:47,160
Speaker 2: Stay that none of us will ever forget was Sunday,

185
00:09:47,280 --> 00:09:51,200
Speaker 2: December the twenty eighth and nearly twenty thousand Baltimore cult

186
00:09:51,320 --> 00:09:54,760
Speaker 2: fans journeyed to New York City and Yankee Stadium to

187
00:09:54,960 --> 00:09:57,160
Speaker 2: root on their beloved Baltimore cult.

188
00:09:57,440 --> 00:09:59,880
Speaker 9: That was David and Goliath. I mean that was okay.

189
00:10:00,640 --> 00:10:03,560
Speaker 9: Not only can we compete with New York, we can

190
00:10:03,840 --> 00:10:04,920
Speaker 9: beat New York.

191
00:10:05,600 --> 00:10:08,599
Speaker 2: Unitas drops back and he's looking for Raymond Berry. He

192
00:10:08,720 --> 00:10:11,880
Speaker 2: hits him, and Raymond battles all the way to the thirteen.

193
00:10:11,960 --> 00:10:14,720
Speaker 2: With just seven seconds left to play, the Colts don't

194
00:10:14,720 --> 00:10:17,079
Speaker 2: even huddle. Steve Myra must be perfect as he kicks

195
00:10:17,120 --> 00:10:20,199
Speaker 2: from the thirteen. Steve's boot is perfect, as the Colts

196
00:10:20,240 --> 00:10:22,600
Speaker 2: tied with seven seconds remaining to send the game into

197
00:10:22,679 --> 00:10:23,959
Speaker 2: sudden death overtime.

198
00:10:24,440 --> 00:10:27,359
Speaker 3: With the nation gripped by the action unfolding on their televisions.

199
00:10:27,559 --> 00:10:29,599
Speaker 3: The Giants went three and out to begin overtime, and

200
00:10:29,679 --> 00:10:32,920
Speaker 3: with Unitis under center, the Colts scythed eighty yards down

201
00:10:32,960 --> 00:10:34,400
Speaker 3: the field at Yankee Stadium.

202
00:10:34,679 --> 00:10:37,640
Speaker 2: Nitas proves his greatness here as he surprises the Giants

203
00:10:37,679 --> 00:10:40,000
Speaker 2: with a deadly pass to Jim Muchler, who steps out

204
00:10:40,040 --> 00:10:42,439
Speaker 2: on the one. The Colts are one yard away from championship.

205
00:10:42,559 --> 00:10:44,959
Speaker 2: Unitas gives to Amichi on the horse drives through a

206
00:10:45,080 --> 00:10:47,240
Speaker 2: huge hole over the right side to bring the world's

207
00:10:47,280 --> 00:10:50,160
Speaker 2: title of Baltimore. As the Colts defeat the Giants twenty

208
00:10:50,240 --> 00:10:53,000
Speaker 2: three to seventeen in the best football game ever.

209
00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:55,160
Speaker 3: Played, but the greatest game ever played is it became

210
00:10:55,200 --> 00:10:57,959
Speaker 3: to be known as had an even bigger impact outside

211
00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:01,000
Speaker 3: the city of Baltimore. The NFL, boosted by the Colts,

212
00:11:01,320 --> 00:11:04,280
Speaker 3: finally had its foothold on the American public. It hasn't

213
00:11:04,280 --> 00:11:07,440
Speaker 3: given it back since the country realized something as they

214
00:11:07,520 --> 00:11:11,240
Speaker 3: watched Unitis and Moore and Barry and Amichi dramatically take

215
00:11:11,320 --> 00:11:14,640
Speaker 3: down the New York Giants. Football was a sport made

216
00:11:14,880 --> 00:11:17,800
Speaker 3: for TV. There's a direct line between the still booming

217
00:11:17,840 --> 00:11:20,920
Speaker 3: popularity of football not just in this country but worldwide

218
00:11:21,160 --> 00:11:23,840
Speaker 3: and the Colts triumph over the Giants on December twenty eighth,

219
00:11:24,080 --> 00:11:24,960
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty eight.

220
00:11:25,080 --> 00:11:29,400
Speaker 8: The Baltimore Colts established the NFL the way it is today.

221
00:11:29,200 --> 00:11:31,400
Speaker 3: And for Baltimore, it gave the city something to be

222
00:11:31,480 --> 00:11:34,320
Speaker 3: proud of and known for other than crabcakes.

223
00:11:34,520 --> 00:11:38,720
Speaker 9: And it's the first nashally televised championship game. It goes

224
00:11:38,760 --> 00:11:41,920
Speaker 9: to overtime. The whole country sees it. We have Johnny

225
00:11:41,920 --> 00:11:45,640
Speaker 9: and IDAs and we are the champions, and that just

226
00:11:45,800 --> 00:11:49,280
Speaker 9: that changes everything, because hey, if Baltimore is good enough

227
00:11:49,280 --> 00:11:51,320
Speaker 9: for Johnny and IIIs and Johnny and Nightis can beat everybody,

228
00:11:51,360 --> 00:11:53,160
Speaker 9: then Baltimore mut's to be a special place.

229
00:11:53,720 --> 00:11:56,040
Speaker 3: The Colts went on to win the NFL Championship again

230
00:11:56,120 --> 00:11:59,680
Speaker 3: in nineteen fifty nine behind NFL MVP Johnny Unitis, again

231
00:12:00,040 --> 00:12:02,520
Speaker 3: eating the Giants, but this time on their home turf

232
00:12:02,760 --> 00:12:06,040
Speaker 3: and without the need for overtime. United is it Lennymore

233
00:12:06,080 --> 00:12:08,040
Speaker 3: for a sixty yard touchdown to open a game, and

234
00:12:08,120 --> 00:12:11,120
Speaker 3: the Colts surged for twenty four fourth quarter points to

235
00:12:11,240 --> 00:12:13,760
Speaker 3: defeat New York thirty one to sixteen in front of

236
00:12:13,840 --> 00:12:17,000
Speaker 3: over fifty seven thousand fans at Memorial Stadium in Balton.

237
00:12:17,120 --> 00:12:17,560
Speaker 3: It's third and.

238
00:12:17,559 --> 00:12:19,440
Speaker 2: Twelve for the Giants in the final period and Connelly

239
00:12:19,520 --> 00:12:21,520
Speaker 2: has to go for the big play again. It turns

240
00:12:21,559 --> 00:12:23,080
Speaker 2: out to be a big play for the Colts as

241
00:12:23,120 --> 00:12:26,200
Speaker 2: Johnny Sample intercepts and sprints down the sideline to make

242
00:12:26,280 --> 00:12:29,800
Speaker 2: his way across for a Baltimore touchdown. The Colts have

243
00:12:29,880 --> 00:12:32,400
Speaker 2: scored twenty four points in the final period to take

244
00:12:32,400 --> 00:12:34,800
Speaker 2: a thirty one to nine lead. The Giants push over

245
00:12:34,880 --> 00:12:37,360
Speaker 2: a final second tally, but the victory belongs to Baltimore.

246
00:12:37,480 --> 00:12:40,439
Speaker 2: Delirious Colt fans swarm out of the field to celebrate

247
00:12:40,760 --> 00:12:44,760
Speaker 2: as Jim Lee Howell congratulates we view Bangs. The final

248
00:12:44,840 --> 00:12:48,040
Speaker 2: score is thirty one to sixteen as the Baltimore Colts

249
00:12:48,080 --> 00:12:50,400
Speaker 2: earned their second straight World championship.

250
00:12:59,480 --> 00:13:01,760
Speaker 3: While was a big city, it had a tight knit,

251
00:13:01,880 --> 00:13:04,679
Speaker 3: we're all in this together feel too. Colts players put

252
00:13:04,720 --> 00:13:07,800
Speaker 3: down roots in the community, and they weren't just football superstars.

253
00:13:08,320 --> 00:13:11,200
Speaker 3: They were neighbors and business owners and in some cases

254
00:13:11,600 --> 00:13:13,400
Speaker 3: they could have been your coworker in the offseason.

255
00:13:13,600 --> 00:13:16,000
Speaker 9: Just look Johnny and Nitis made more money than the

256
00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:19,520
Speaker 9: average person, but maybe twice as much. He's still cut

257
00:13:19,559 --> 00:13:21,760
Speaker 9: his own law. You could go for a drive and

258
00:13:21,800 --> 00:13:25,240
Speaker 9: you can see Jimmy Orr, who lives a neighborhood next

259
00:13:25,280 --> 00:13:27,920
Speaker 9: to yours. You saw these guys at the grocery store.

260
00:13:28,040 --> 00:13:30,920
Speaker 9: They worked in the community because they had to. These

261
00:13:30,960 --> 00:13:33,439
Speaker 9: weren't just guys you rooted for. These were guys who

262
00:13:33,559 --> 00:13:36,640
Speaker 9: lived where you lived, who worked where you worked, and

263
00:13:36,720 --> 00:13:38,719
Speaker 9: who were part of the community you are a part of.

264
00:13:39,360 --> 00:13:42,400
Speaker 9: So you weren't just rooting for these idols and stars.

265
00:13:43,040 --> 00:13:44,160
Speaker 9: You were rooting for your neighbor.

266
00:13:44,440 --> 00:13:47,040
Speaker 3: The combination of a winning team that was wound into

267
00:13:47,080 --> 00:13:50,520
Speaker 3: the fabric of the Baltimore community created a deep loyal

268
00:13:50,600 --> 00:13:53,440
Speaker 3: support for the Colts. The Colts sold out fifty one

269
00:13:53,559 --> 00:13:56,320
Speaker 3: consecutive home games at Memorial Stadium in the late nineteen

270
00:13:56,400 --> 00:13:58,120
Speaker 3: fifties into the nineteen sixties.

271
00:13:58,600 --> 00:14:01,000
Speaker 10: You've got to have to be a bottomall do appreciate it.

272
00:14:01,840 --> 00:14:02,480
Speaker 11: Be out of the sprit.

273
00:14:02,559 --> 00:14:05,160
Speaker 10: I've never seen sprint and it couldn't been than anything.

274
00:14:04,920 --> 00:14:06,080
Speaker 12: He hasn't done here in Baltimore.

275
00:14:06,960 --> 00:14:09,520
Speaker 3: Head coach we Bu Bank was replaced in nineteen sixty

276
00:14:09,559 --> 00:14:11,640
Speaker 3: three by someone considered a risky higher at the time,

277
00:14:11,840 --> 00:14:15,000
Speaker 3: the thirty three year old defensive coordinator of the Detroit Lions,

278
00:14:15,480 --> 00:14:17,880
Speaker 3: Don Shula. You might know him now as the winningest

279
00:14:17,920 --> 00:14:22,080
Speaker 3: coach in NFL history behind Shula. Uniteds won MVP again

280
00:14:22,200 --> 00:14:24,960
Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty four. In nineteen sixty seven, and the

281
00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:27,560
Speaker 3: Colts began a stretch where their chief rival was Vince

282
00:14:27,640 --> 00:14:31,920
Speaker 3: Lombardi's Green Bay Packers. Again, as the NFL was establishing

283
00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:35,440
Speaker 3: itself at the forefront of the American sports conscience, it

284
00:14:35,600 --> 00:14:37,400
Speaker 3: was the Colts leading the charge.

285
00:14:37,720 --> 00:14:39,520
Speaker 9: They would go back and forth for the rest of

286
00:14:39,600 --> 00:14:42,120
Speaker 9: that decade with the Green Bay Packers in Vince Lombardi

287
00:14:42,560 --> 00:14:45,200
Speaker 9: and Johnny Niitis. You had Bart Starr, you had Don Shula,

288
00:14:45,480 --> 00:14:48,120
Speaker 9: you had Vince Lombardi. You had these gigantic legends, and

289
00:14:48,160 --> 00:14:51,440
Speaker 9: they're in their thirties and forties. You knew every year

290
00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:54,800
Speaker 9: the championship would either run through Baltimore or Green Bay.

291
00:14:55,720 --> 00:14:59,840
Speaker 9: And it became this massive rivalry at the exact same time.

292
00:15:00,160 --> 00:15:01,880
Speaker 9: From fifty eight to four, the lay just starts to

293
00:15:01,960 --> 00:15:03,480
Speaker 9: grow exponentially.

294
00:15:03,800 --> 00:15:06,880
Speaker 3: The Colts reached the NFL Championship again in nineteen sixty four,

295
00:15:06,920 --> 00:15:08,920
Speaker 3: where they were shut out by the Cleveland Browns despite

296
00:15:08,960 --> 00:15:11,600
Speaker 3: being favored to win by a touchdown. Four years later,

297
00:15:11,640 --> 00:15:14,200
Speaker 3: the heavily favored Colts were upset in Super Bowl three

298
00:15:14,280 --> 00:15:16,160
Speaker 3: by the flowing locks of Joe Namath and the New

299
00:15:16,240 --> 00:15:19,440
Speaker 3: York Jets. Namath famously guaranteed the Jets would win despite

300
00:15:19,480 --> 00:15:21,200
Speaker 3: being eighteen point underdogs.

301
00:15:22,160 --> 00:15:24,040
Speaker 13: The matis again the past.

302
00:15:24,080 --> 00:15:25,480
Speaker 5: The recular said, he has the ball.

303
00:15:25,560 --> 00:15:26,280
Speaker 12: The game is over.

304
00:15:26,840 --> 00:15:29,960
Speaker 13: The New York Jets are the world champions. They have

305
00:15:30,120 --> 00:15:32,720
Speaker 13: upset the Baltimore Colts and beat them.

306
00:15:32,680 --> 00:15:33,600
Speaker 14: Handily here today.

307
00:15:34,520 --> 00:15:37,280
Speaker 3: Despite a relatively short championship drought, the Colts were still

308
00:15:37,320 --> 00:15:39,680
Speaker 3: among the class of the NFL in the nineteen sixties.

309
00:15:40,080 --> 00:15:42,680
Speaker 3: From nineteen fifty seven through nineteen seventy one, the Colts

310
00:15:42,800 --> 00:15:45,840
Speaker 3: never finished below five hundred, and they were perennial contenders

311
00:15:45,880 --> 00:15:48,720
Speaker 3: in the nascent stages of the Super Bowl era. In

312
00:15:48,840 --> 00:15:51,800
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy, under first year head coach Don McCafferty, the

313
00:15:51,880 --> 00:15:53,560
Speaker 3: Colts finally broke through.

314
00:15:53,600 --> 00:15:58,680
Speaker 13: Dallas a second down, Martin being chased by Baba Smith and.

315
00:15:58,800 --> 00:16:02,240
Speaker 12: Laura innstet Hight colers, Mike Thonders.

316
00:16:01,920 --> 00:16:04,800
Speaker 13: Centers up, and Baltimore has a chastaer.

317
00:16:05,360 --> 00:16:06,600
Speaker 10: Balimore has a ball.

318
00:16:06,520 --> 00:16:07,560
Speaker 11: In the Dallas twenty eight.

319
00:16:07,800 --> 00:16:12,480
Speaker 13: Derek comes O'Brien nine seconds young Jim O'Brien a rookie

320
00:16:13,040 --> 00:16:15,560
Speaker 13: and ye kick is up, They Kick is Good.

321
00:16:21,640 --> 00:16:25,160
Speaker 3: The colts sixteen to thirteen triumph over Tom Landry's Dallas

322
00:16:25,200 --> 00:16:28,640
Speaker 3: Cowboys delivered a third championship and first Super Bowl to

323
00:16:28,680 --> 00:16:32,120
Speaker 3: Baltimore within two decades of the team's founding, and by

324
00:16:32,160 --> 00:16:34,960
Speaker 3: the spring of nineteen seventy one, almost the entire American

325
00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:39,600
Speaker 3: sports landscape revolved around Baltimore. The Colts were Super Bowl champions.

326
00:16:39,720 --> 00:16:43,240
Speaker 3: The Orioles, behind nationwide stars like Brooks, Robinson, Frank Robinson,

327
00:16:43,280 --> 00:16:46,360
Speaker 3: and Jim Palmer, dominated the Cincinnati Reds in winning the

328
00:16:46,440 --> 00:16:50,320
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy World Series. The Baltimore Bullets, led by future

329
00:16:50,360 --> 00:16:52,960
Speaker 3: Hall of Fame center Wes Unseald, reached the nineteen seventy

330
00:16:52,960 --> 00:16:57,440
Speaker 3: one NBA Finals. Between nineteen sixty four and nineteen seventy one,

331
00:16:57,680 --> 00:17:02,680
Speaker 3: four Baltimore athletes one MVP Johnny Anditis Brooks, Robinson, Frank Robinson,

332
00:17:02,840 --> 00:17:05,560
Speaker 3: and Wes Unseld. The Orioles won the World Series in

333
00:17:05,600 --> 00:17:08,240
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty six, in nineteen seventy, and the Colts won

334
00:17:08,359 --> 00:17:11,480
Speaker 3: the Super Bowl in nineteen seventy. The Baltimore Civic Center,

335
00:17:11,520 --> 00:17:14,200
Speaker 3: home of the Bullets, hosted the nineteen sixty nine NBA

336
00:17:14,320 --> 00:17:18,320
Speaker 3: All Star Games. Nester Appartio, a Baltimore native and longtime

337
00:17:18,440 --> 00:17:21,719
Speaker 3: radio host in the city, described how Baltimore's sports culture

338
00:17:21,920 --> 00:17:22,280
Speaker 3: was built.

339
00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:25,840
Speaker 5: The Orioles caught on because of the Colts.

340
00:17:25,920 --> 00:17:29,000
Speaker 6: The Colts in the late fifties begat Brooks, Robinson and

341
00:17:29,040 --> 00:17:31,320
Speaker 6: the Orioles and oriole magic and those things.

342
00:17:31,960 --> 00:17:34,960
Speaker 3: Less than twenty years after professional sports arrived in Baltimore,

343
00:17:35,240 --> 00:17:38,240
Speaker 3: the city's civic pride became deeply tied to the success

344
00:17:38,320 --> 00:17:39,359
Speaker 3: of its beloved teams.

345
00:17:39,640 --> 00:17:43,080
Speaker 9: In New York, you know, you have Broadway stars, You've

346
00:17:43,080 --> 00:17:46,240
Speaker 9: got lots of captains of industry. There's lots of famous,

347
00:17:46,280 --> 00:17:50,359
Speaker 9: big time people in Baltimore that there's nothing bigger than

348
00:17:50,440 --> 00:17:53,360
Speaker 9: Johnny and Iis and the Colts, Brooks, Robinson and the Orioles.

349
00:17:54,359 --> 00:17:57,160
Speaker 9: In Philly, the Eagles weren't that good, so you didn't

350
00:17:57,200 --> 00:18:00,040
Speaker 9: have the elevation of star players on great teams the

351
00:18:00,080 --> 00:18:03,520
Speaker 9: other he had great teams in Washington. It's tough to

352
00:18:03,560 --> 00:18:05,240
Speaker 9: compete with the President of the Senate at the House

353
00:18:05,320 --> 00:18:09,639
Speaker 9: and all the famous political figures. In Baltimore, if you

354
00:18:09,760 --> 00:18:12,000
Speaker 9: were a cult player, you were king.

355
00:18:12,920 --> 00:18:16,200
Speaker 3: But while Baltimore became the center of American sports, cracks

356
00:18:16,240 --> 00:18:19,320
Speaker 3: were forming within the city's NFL team. Johnny Unitis was

357
00:18:19,400 --> 00:18:21,680
Speaker 3: thirty seven years old when the Colts won Super Bowl five,

358
00:18:22,119 --> 00:18:24,680
Speaker 3: and between nineteen sixty eight and nineteen seventy one, he

359
00:18:24,800 --> 00:18:28,800
Speaker 3: threw twenty more interceptions than he threw touchdowns. At some point,

360
00:18:29,200 --> 00:18:30,960
Speaker 3: the Colts are going to have to move on from

361
00:18:30,960 --> 00:18:34,200
Speaker 3: a franchise legend, whether it was United's decision or not.

362
00:18:35,320 --> 00:18:37,440
Speaker 3: More literally, though, the cracks were forming at the home

363
00:18:37,480 --> 00:18:40,320
Speaker 3: of the Colts, Memorial Stadium, and this is the starting

364
00:18:40,359 --> 00:18:43,080
Speaker 3: point for why Baltimore, less than a decade and a

365
00:18:43,080 --> 00:18:45,919
Speaker 3: half later, would ultimately lose the Colts.

366
00:18:46,560 --> 00:18:50,480
Speaker 15: Miracles on thirty third Street were once commonplace when Memorial

367
00:18:50,560 --> 00:18:54,440
Speaker 15: Stadium was home to the Baltimore Coltons. They were the

368
00:18:54,600 --> 00:18:59,320
Speaker 15: town's reigning monarchs and Memorial was their magic kingdom.

369
00:19:00,520 --> 00:19:03,400
Speaker 3: Memorial Stadium as a structure was built in nineteen twenty

370
00:19:03,440 --> 00:19:06,200
Speaker 3: one on thirty third Street north of Baltimore's city center,

371
00:19:06,440 --> 00:19:09,040
Speaker 3: and it was known then as Venable Stadium. As the

372
00:19:09,080 --> 00:19:12,280
Speaker 3: Great Depression bled into World War II, the stadium was

373
00:19:12,320 --> 00:19:15,120
Speaker 3: a money pit and it began to deteriorate. It didn't

374
00:19:15,119 --> 00:19:17,920
Speaker 3: even have proper bathrooms. Magic going too a baseball game

375
00:19:17,920 --> 00:19:20,440
Speaker 3: and having to relieve yourself in a wooden outhouse outside

376
00:19:20,480 --> 00:19:23,639
Speaker 3: the stadium. Most of the structure of the stadium was

377
00:19:23,680 --> 00:19:26,320
Speaker 3: demolished and rebuilt in nineteen fifty at a cost of

378
00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:29,879
Speaker 3: six point five million about eighty four million dollars in

379
00:19:29,960 --> 00:19:32,560
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, and an upper deck was added. After

380
00:19:32,600 --> 00:19:34,960
Speaker 3: the Colts first season as a full fledged NFL team

381
00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:38,560
Speaker 3: in nineteen fifty three. The new venue was named Memorial

382
00:19:38,640 --> 00:19:41,200
Speaker 3: Stadium to honor soldiers who lost their lives in World

383
00:19:41,280 --> 00:19:45,560
Speaker 3: War II. Like most stadiums constructed at this time, Memorial

384
00:19:45,600 --> 00:19:48,760
Speaker 3: Stadium was built to host both football and baseball games.

385
00:19:49,400 --> 00:19:53,080
Speaker 3: Most considered it a better venue for baseball. Skybox's club

386
00:19:53,160 --> 00:19:56,560
Speaker 3: seats luxury amenities. These were not part of the American

387
00:19:56,600 --> 00:19:59,760
Speaker 3: sports landscape back in the nineteen fifties. Again, it was

388
00:19:59,800 --> 00:20:02,280
Speaker 3: just great that Memorial Stadium even had seats instead of

389
00:20:02,320 --> 00:20:06,960
Speaker 3: splinter inflicting wooden benches. Fans flocked to Memorial Stadium to

390
00:20:07,040 --> 00:20:09,280
Speaker 3: watch the Colts and Orioles era of dominance in the

391
00:20:09,359 --> 00:20:13,360
Speaker 3: nineteen sixties into the early nineteen seventies. Colts games were

392
00:20:13,440 --> 00:20:15,720
Speaker 3: particularly brutal for opposing teams.

393
00:20:15,840 --> 00:20:18,000
Speaker 8: In those days. They used to introduce the players of

394
00:20:18,040 --> 00:20:21,240
Speaker 8: the visiting team. And every time they wouldn't do that,

395
00:20:22,280 --> 00:20:25,160
Speaker 8: you know, the player would you come out and they'd

396
00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:28,840
Speaker 8: go dick buckets and the whole stadium would scream, sixty

397
00:20:28,920 --> 00:20:32,320
Speaker 8: thousand people screaming who's he? And when the flight song

398
00:20:32,480 --> 00:20:34,600
Speaker 8: came and the band played the flight song at the

399
00:20:34,640 --> 00:20:38,160
Speaker 8: pregame show, you couldn't hear it. Even when I joined

400
00:20:38,200 --> 00:20:40,720
Speaker 8: the band in nineteen sixty two, you couldn't hear yourself

401
00:20:41,040 --> 00:20:43,560
Speaker 8: because of the way they yelled. They call us the

402
00:20:43,680 --> 00:20:46,679
Speaker 8: world's lauders outdoor in sane solom and boy did they

403
00:20:46,760 --> 00:20:48,480
Speaker 8: have that right, trust me.

404
00:20:48,880 --> 00:20:51,600
Speaker 3: But just two decades after the rebuilt stadium opened its

405
00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:53,959
Speaker 3: doors to the Colts and Orioles, it was outdated at

406
00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:57,639
Speaker 3: best and crumbling at worst. And this is where the

407
00:20:57,760 --> 00:21:01,760
Speaker 3: first owner of the Colts enters the story. Carol Rosenbloom, this.

408
00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:04,399
Speaker 2: Is the happiest expression this man has had in the

409
00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:06,680
Speaker 2: football season nineteen fifty eight. Here is the owner of

410
00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:11,640
Speaker 2: the Baltimore Colt, Carol Rosenbloom. Carolin, what do we say, Chuck?

411
00:21:11,720 --> 00:21:14,680
Speaker 16: It's not the happiest expression I've had since we've been playing,

412
00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:16,240
Speaker 16: but I think it's the happiest I've ever had.

413
00:21:16,119 --> 00:21:16,600
Speaker 2: In my life.

414
00:21:16,720 --> 00:21:18,640
Speaker 16: You just can't say enough about these kids.

415
00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:22,399
Speaker 2: They are the greatest, Carol. As I said earlier, this

416
00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:24,920
Speaker 2: the comeback to the football team made in the second half,

417
00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:26,480
Speaker 2: I think was one of the greatest tribute. It's the

418
00:21:26,520 --> 00:21:28,400
Speaker 2: team has ever paid its coaching staff.

419
00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:30,800
Speaker 16: No question about that, and they prove that they believe

420
00:21:30,840 --> 00:21:33,879
Speaker 16: in themselves, Chuck, and they've repaid the fines for all

421
00:21:33,920 --> 00:21:35,080
Speaker 16: the good they've done for them.

422
00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:37,439
Speaker 2: And I hope that you'll forgive me for saying it, Carol,

423
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:39,520
Speaker 2: but I'm quite sure that every man on this football

424
00:21:39,560 --> 00:21:41,440
Speaker 2: squad also felt that he owed that kind of a

425
00:21:41,560 --> 00:21:42,840
Speaker 2: cock to Carol Rosenbloom.

426
00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:44,560
Speaker 16: Well, it's very sweet of you. I feel the same

427
00:21:44,600 --> 00:21:47,160
Speaker 16: way fiftime, Chuck. Only one thing. You know, we told

428
00:21:47,200 --> 00:21:48,840
Speaker 16: the finess it would take us five years and give

429
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:49,639
Speaker 16: him a championship.

430
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:50,720
Speaker 2: It took us six.

431
00:21:50,800 --> 00:21:52,120
Speaker 16: I'm sorry with last that year.

432
00:21:52,280 --> 00:21:54,320
Speaker 2: You know that I don't overlook that oversight. And thanks

433
00:21:54,359 --> 00:21:57,760
Speaker 2: to you for everything. Congratulations Carol. Wonderful what ifull have

434
00:21:57,840 --> 00:21:58,159
Speaker 2: to do them?

435
00:21:58,520 --> 00:22:01,720
Speaker 3: Rosenbloom is a through and through so born and raised Baltimorean.

436
00:22:02,119 --> 00:22:04,840
Speaker 3: When the opportunity to bring professional football back to Baltimore

437
00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:07,440
Speaker 3: a rose in the early nineteen fifties, Rosenbloom, who was

438
00:22:07,480 --> 00:22:11,320
Speaker 3: a former college football player himself, invested thirteen thousand dollars

439
00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:14,159
Speaker 3: to become the principal owner of the newly reformed Colts.

440
00:22:15,119 --> 00:22:18,119
Speaker 3: It was under Rosenbloom, that native son of Baltimore, that

441
00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:21,240
Speaker 3: the Colts became a country wide phenomenon and a local

442
00:22:21,280 --> 00:22:25,320
Speaker 3: community pillar. But by the early nineteen seventies, Rosenbloom was

443
00:22:25,440 --> 00:22:28,200
Speaker 3: largely an absentee owner. He spent most of his time

444
00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:30,000
Speaker 3: at his homes in New York and Miami, and he

445
00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:33,640
Speaker 3: would travel to Baltimore on Fridays before games. Around this time,

446
00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:35,960
Speaker 3: even as the Colts were enjoying plenty of success on

447
00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:40,000
Speaker 3: the field, rumors began swirling that Carol Rosenbloom was not

448
00:22:40,200 --> 00:22:41,280
Speaker 3: happy in Baltimore.

449
00:22:41,480 --> 00:22:44,240
Speaker 17: So I think it was just talk. I do think

450
00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:45,520
Speaker 17: he wanted it out of Baltimore.

451
00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:48,879
Speaker 3: Pete Ward, now the Colts chief operating officer, began working

452
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:50,720
Speaker 3: for the team in the early nineteen eighties, and.

453
00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:53,520
Speaker 17: I know that from talking with you know, I got

454
00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:56,960
Speaker 17: to know some of the old veteran writers you know

455
00:22:57,200 --> 00:22:59,840
Speaker 17: in Baltimore, like John Steadman and Gordon Beard with a

456
00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:03,920
Speaker 17: and they were very active back then and covering the

457
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:07,240
Speaker 17: Colts and more or less a rumor that could not

458
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:08,200
Speaker 17: be validated.

459
00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:14,200
Speaker 3: Rosenbloom, a deeply competitive individual, also felt like the Colts

460
00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:17,359
Speaker 3: had become underappreciated in Baltimore by both fans in the media,

461
00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:20,480
Speaker 3: despite at the time him being the winningest owner in

462
00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:24,080
Speaker 3: NFL history. That's a distinction he held until New England

463
00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:26,640
Speaker 3: Patriots owner Robert Kraft passed him a few years ago.

464
00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:29,720
Speaker 3: Less than a year after winning Super Bowl Five, the

465
00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:33,840
Speaker 3: Colts held three preseason games at Memorial Stadium. Rosenbloom, according

466
00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:36,359
Speaker 3: to a nineteen seventy two New York Times article, was

467
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:40,560
Speaker 3: quote most discouraged by those three games, drawing fewer than

468
00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:44,880
Speaker 3: sixteen thousand fans on average, well below the stadium's capacity

469
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:48,959
Speaker 3: of sixty thousand. Fan support for games that mattered slowly

470
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:52,200
Speaker 3: began eroding. Two the colts fifty one games sellout streak

471
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:55,399
Speaker 3: ended with five thousand empty seats at Memorial Stadium as

472
00:23:55,480 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 3: the Colts shut out the Cincinnati Bengals in their first

473
00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:01,320
Speaker 3: playoff victory on their way to winning Super Five. The

474
00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:03,920
Speaker 3: regular season sellout streak ended the next season.

475
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:08,280
Speaker 17: The thing that most people don't realize it kind of blame.

476
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:11,320
Speaker 17: You know, Baltimore had a sellout streak for many, many years,

477
00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:15,600
Speaker 17: and it's a common narrative to hear that, you know,

478
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:18,960
Speaker 17: this streak ended after Barber Essay came onboard. It actually

479
00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:22,720
Speaker 17: ended in nineteen seventy one, which was the year after

480
00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:23,760
Speaker 17: they won the Super Bowl.

481
00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:24,520
Speaker 11: So things hit.

482
00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:26,800
Speaker 17: The dynamics were changing in Baltimore.

483
00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:29,520
Speaker 3: But if Rosenbloom couldn't do anything about how he was

484
00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:31,960
Speaker 3: being written about in the press or how Colts fans

485
00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:34,280
Speaker 3: weren't showing the kind of appreciation for his team that

486
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 3: he wanted, there was a problem he actually could do

487
00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:40,280
Speaker 3: something about. And that problem was Memorial Stadium.

488
00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:43,080
Speaker 17: It was deteriorating. But the other thing was, you know,

489
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:46,840
Speaker 17: back then, a lot of stadiums were similar to Memorial Stadium.

490
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:49,840
Speaker 3: Less than twenty years after opening its doors, Memorial Stadium

491
00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:52,200
Speaker 3: was in rough shape. It wasn't an outlier in the

492
00:24:52,280 --> 00:24:56,159
Speaker 3: early nineteen seventies. Cleveland and Los Angeles had old, deteriorating

493
00:24:56,240 --> 00:24:58,679
Speaker 3: stadiums back then too. But what made the Colts an

494
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:01,440
Speaker 3: outlier was that the team owner was thinking about moving

495
00:25:01,480 --> 00:25:01,800
Speaker 3: his team.

496
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:04,200
Speaker 18: Carol Rosenbloom was wanting to move the team.

497
00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:06,520
Speaker 3: John Scott began working for the Colts as the team's

498
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:09,200
Speaker 3: equipment manager in nineteen eighty two, and few know the

499
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:10,920
Speaker 3: franchise's history better than him.

500
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:13,920
Speaker 18: Is so much so that they actually had training camp

501
00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:18,920
Speaker 18: in Tampa. Rosenbloom had you know, a home down there,

502
00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:22,280
Speaker 18: and they had preseason games down there.

503
00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:24,200
Speaker 3: While the West Coast may not have been an option,

504
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:27,440
Speaker 3: Tampa hadn't got the Buccaneers yet, there was certainly some

505
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 3: smoke regarding a move there, or maybe the Colts would

506
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 3: just looked to build a new stadium in the Baltimore suburbs.

507
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:34,359
Speaker 19: He had thought about building a stadium in Tampa. At

508
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 19: that time, the Bucks did not exist. There was no

509
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:37,639
Speaker 19: Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

510
00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:40,760
Speaker 3: Judy Batista is a longtime NFL reporter who now works

511
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 3: for NFL dot Com and NFL Network.

512
00:25:42,960 --> 00:25:46,959
Speaker 19: And he actually held a training camp practice in Tampa, right,

513
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 19: which is like so provocative, like imagine a team doing

514
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:54,159
Speaker 19: that now, you know, and Pete Rosell basically it's like no,

515
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:56,840
Speaker 19: like no, he put the brakes on that idea, like

516
00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:57,879
Speaker 19: you're not going to Tampa.

517
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:01,280
Speaker 20: And obviously eventually Culver he got the team in Tampa

518
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 20: but yeah, there was there.

519
00:26:03,560 --> 00:26:05,679
Speaker 19: He was looking at all kinds of things like Tampa,

520
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:10,760
Speaker 19: the Maryland suburbs like he so at that point he

521
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:12,719
Speaker 19: was thinking like, well, I'll keep the Colts.

522
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:13,959
Speaker 20: I'll just move the Colts.

523
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:17,600
Speaker 3: But what was clear is Rosenbloom had no interest in

524
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 3: keeping the Colts at Memorial Stadium. He was quoted in

525
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 3: the Baltimore Sun in January nineteen seventy two as saying, quote,

526
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:26,760
Speaker 3: we are honoring our contract for Memorial Stadium for the

527
00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:29,440
Speaker 3: next season, but we do not intend to play in

528
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:31,560
Speaker 3: Memorial Stadium after next year.

529
00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:34,920
Speaker 8: Memorial Stadium was shot. I know that for a fact,

530
00:26:35,520 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 8: Carol Rosen win one new stadium. And in the press

531
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 8: there's one or two members of the press and another gentleman,

532
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:48,080
Speaker 8: I'm a pressman who was a city council president, not

533
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:52,359
Speaker 8: the mayor, but city president sort of said nobody's going

534
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:54,960
Speaker 8: to move from Memorial Stadium. It's a memorial to the

535
00:26:55,520 --> 00:26:57,840
Speaker 8: men and women lost their lives. And it got to

536
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:01,440
Speaker 8: be very controversial, and Sear just got tired.

537
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:04,680
Speaker 3: Of it with Rosenbloom's path to moving the Colts out

538
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:07,600
Speaker 3: of Baltimore blocked and no easy way out of a

539
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 3: memorial Stadium. The shrewd businessman concocted a bold plan to

540
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:15,960
Speaker 3: get himself out of Baltimore. It started when Los Angeles

541
00:27:16,119 --> 00:27:19,439
Speaker 3: Rams owner Dan Reeves, who was dying of cancer, reached

542
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:20,440
Speaker 3: out to Rosenbloom.

543
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: Mister Reeves said cancer. You know, he was the owner

544
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 1: of the Rams.

545
00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 3: Jim Mersay, now the owner and CEO of the Colts,

546
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:29,400
Speaker 3: was twelve years old when this all went down.

547
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:33,080
Speaker 1: He told Carol Rosenbloom, he said, Carol, you know, I

548
00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:35,520
Speaker 1: know you want to get to LA. Just want to

549
00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:38,200
Speaker 1: let you know, you know that I have cancer and

550
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 1: I don't have much time. So Carol took that in

551
00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 1: and was a pretty good mover and shaker and so

552
00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:49,200
Speaker 1: basically kind of cultivated a deal, you know, talking to

553
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 1: Roselle and his other owner friends.

554
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:54,920
Speaker 3: With the opportunity to buy the Los Angeles Rams. Rosenbloom

555
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:57,080
Speaker 3: found his escape patch from Baltimore.

556
00:27:57,400 --> 00:27:59,639
Speaker 19: Like this was not an owner, Like he was not

557
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:02,879
Speaker 19: one of the more quiet, self effacing owners in NFL history.

558
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:04,760
Speaker 19: Like this was an owner who was used to getting

559
00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 19: his way, you know. Once he became disenchanted with the

560
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 19: situation in Baltimore, and he sort of had it in

561
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 19: his head that he probably needed to get out of

562
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 19: Baltimore somehow, either with the team or him getting out

563
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:23,880
Speaker 19: of Baltimore with somebody else. You know, it was inevitable

564
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:25,159
Speaker 19: that that was going to happen. It was just a

565
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:27,080
Speaker 19: question of how it was going to happen, because this

566
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:29,240
Speaker 19: was somebody who was very used to getting his way,

567
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:31,119
Speaker 19: as most NFL owners are.

568
00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:34,200
Speaker 3: The problem was, if Rosenbloom sold the Colts and bought

569
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:36,400
Speaker 3: the Rams, he'd have to pay about four point four

570
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 3: million dollars in capital gains taxes. That's about thirty two

571
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:43,719
Speaker 3: million in today's dollars. So someone behind the scenes came

572
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:46,000
Speaker 3: up with an idea, why don't we find a buyer

573
00:28:46,080 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 3: for the Rams and have them trade the franchise to

574
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 3: Rosenbloom in exchange for the Colts. Initially, Rosenbloom found a

575
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 3: pair of buyers who are interested in the idea, but

576
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:58,360
Speaker 3: their funding fell through to the point they'd need another

577
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 3: person to step in with cash to acquire the Rams.

578
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 3: That other person was a Chicago businessman who had just

579
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:07,880
Speaker 3: sold his company and a few years prior had dabbled

580
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 3: in the thought of buying the Montreal expos More than anything,

581
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:15,880
Speaker 3: this businessman wanted to own a major League team. His

582
00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:17,760
Speaker 3: name was Robert Arsa.

583
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 20: As it turned it out, these two gentlemen did not

584
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:26,160
Speaker 20: have quite enough money.

585
00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 19: I think the number was nineteen million dollars that they

586
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 19: had to get to and these two guys didn't have

587
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 19: enough money, and so Robert Ursay was brought into the picture.

588
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 1: So it was a big number. He was going to

589
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 1: buy a minority interest around thirty percent roughly. And it's

590
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 1: surprising because these days, I, you know, I don't think

591
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 1: I'd see it happen, but you know, he literally went,

592
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:51,720
Speaker 1: you know, to the closing and all those sort of things.

593
00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 1: The other guys backed out.

594
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 19: They met in a New York coffee shop and he thought,

595
00:29:57,440 --> 00:29:59,680
Speaker 19: your mercey told it really funny when I told to him,

596
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 19: like Robert ur Say shows up at the coffee shop

597
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:04,640
Speaker 19: thinking like, okay, I'm gonna put in thirty percent, and then,

598
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:06,400
Speaker 19: as it turns out, the other two guys are like, yeah,

599
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:09,440
Speaker 19: we're out, and so the whole bill.

600
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:11,840
Speaker 20: Is on Robert ur Say.

601
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:16,320
Speaker 3: Robert Ursay's bankers, though, we're willing to lend him the

602
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:18,880
Speaker 3: difference in cash needed to purchase the Colts, which was

603
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 3: about fourteen point five million dollars. As Jim Irsay explained it,

604
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 3: these were the days before the NFL implemented a debt

605
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 3: ceiling on purchases of teams. There were no rules for

606
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 3: how purchasing a team could be financed, and so Robert

607
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 3: Ursay signed away every last dollar he and his wife

608
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 3: had to buy the Rams. He would get the difference

609
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:41,480
Speaker 3: in franchise value between the Colts and the Rams back

610
00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 3: as part of this remarkable trade of franchises, but he

611
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 3: would still be taking on significant debt.

612
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 1: He you know, called my mom, and she had a

613
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 1: co sign literally put everything he had into buying the

614
00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 1: Rams and trade him for the Colts, at least on

615
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:03,560
Speaker 1: his prove for the Rams. You know, he started off

616
00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, four point five million dollars because

617
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:11,960
Speaker 1: he got that with the Colts. So now you're into

618
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 1: fourteen point five million dollars for the Baltimore Colt. So

619
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:20,880
Speaker 1: he was a riverboat gambler, him and I it's been

620
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:22,400
Speaker 1: a great father and son team.

621
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:23,640
Speaker 11: He just.

622
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:30,640
Speaker 1: If you go to Wharton's Business School or Harvard Business School, whatever,

623
00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 1: the first thing they're going to talk about is diversity.

624
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:38,360
Speaker 1: And so you don't usually put all your eggs in

625
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: one basket. But he did, and off we went, but

626
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 1: again five million down. Everything he had he owed basically

627
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:51,840
Speaker 1: ten million dollars, so he owed double for what he

628
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 1: paid for it.

629
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:54,600
Speaker 3: He could never do that now, and so for the

630
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 3: first and likely only time in NFL history, there was

631
00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:03,480
Speaker 3: a trade of franchise. Robert Orsay and Robert Ursay alone

632
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:07,040
Speaker 3: would pay nineteen million dollars, the most ever for an

633
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:10,520
Speaker 3: NFL team at that time, to buy the Rams. He

634
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:13,160
Speaker 3: would then trade ownership of the Rams to Rosenbloom and

635
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:16,680
Speaker 3: assume ownership of the Colts. The deal was completed in

636
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:18,360
Speaker 3: the summer of nineteen seventy two.

637
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 20: They were literally changing franchises, but nobody was moving.

638
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:22,880
Speaker 11: You know.

639
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:24,719
Speaker 19: It's just it's like sort of hard to wrap your

640
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:27,640
Speaker 19: head around, right, Like, they didn't trade players, they didn't

641
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 19: trade uniforms, they didn't They literally just said like, okay,

642
00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 19: you take this team, I'll take your team, and we

643
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:35,280
Speaker 19: go our ways.

644
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:39,080
Speaker 3: Rosenbloom got his wish. He was out of Baltimore.

645
00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 1: Carol Rosenbloom knew that he was playing in a baseball stadium,

646
00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 1: that he wasn't draw enough revenue and it wasn't going

647
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 1: to change. And the city wasn't going to help or

648
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 1: the state.

649
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:52,480
Speaker 11: So he.

650
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:59,560
Speaker 1: Kind of got out of there thinking, Wow, somehow I

651
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 1: got someone to take this problem, which was the stadium problem,

652
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 1: because Jill Robbie was years away from coming up with

653
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 1: the concept of club seats and seat licenses and those

654
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 1: sort of things from the Dolphins.

655
00:33:16,680 --> 00:33:18,560
Speaker 3: Keep in mind two things here as we get into

656
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 3: the Robert or Say years of the Baltimore Colts. First,

657
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 3: everything er Say had went into buying the team. Second,

658
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:28,520
Speaker 3: the additional revenue teams would begin to generate in the

659
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 3: nineteen seventies through premium seating was not something Memorial Stadium

660
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 3: could support. But upon arriving in Maryland, Robert Orsa pledged

661
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 3: to keep the Colts in Baltimore. He also pledged to

662
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 3: bring preseason games back to Baltimore instead of Tampa, where

663
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 3: Carol Rosenbloom cut a deal to have the Colts hold

664
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 3: training camp and preseason games that year. Upon buying the

665
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 3: team in nineteen seventy two, Robert Ursay said, quote, I

666
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 3: bought the Colts to play in Baltimore. I have no

667
00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 3: thought of taking them elsewhere. We have a great team

668
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:02,080
Speaker 3: and a great sports where they have sellouts. Why move.

669
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:05,720
Speaker 3: Ersay was confident he could keep the Colts in Baltimore,

670
00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:08,680
Speaker 3: maybe based on Rosenbloom telling him he'd get a new

671
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 3: stadium after acquiring the team.

672
00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:13,239
Speaker 21: That was a promise that Carol Rosenbloom made to him.

673
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:16,279
Speaker 21: The city of Baltimore, nor the state of Maryland made

674
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 21: that promise. That was what mister Rosenbloom called mister Ersay,

675
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 21: that you're going to get into stadium, and I think

676
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:25,080
Speaker 21: that's why they switched the deal.

677
00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:27,759
Speaker 3: Things started off well between Robert Ursay and Colts fans.

678
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 3: He went to the annual Colts Corral convention in Ocean City, Maryland.

679
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:34,360
Speaker 3: He played volleyball with fans there and mingled as the

680
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:36,000
Speaker 3: Colts got to know their new owner.

681
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 6: But things quickly went downhill then to the seventies. You know,

682
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 6: Bob bought the team, and look, I don't need to

683
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:45,279
Speaker 6: trash Bob on the Colts website. I like Jimmy a

684
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 6: lot and Pete and people that I've known for years,

685
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 6: but you know, Bob's history is Bob's history.

686
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:53,319
Speaker 3: Robert Ursay did not quickly endear himself to Colts fans.

687
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 3: In his first year of ownership, the Colts finished with

688
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:57,880
Speaker 3: a five and nine record. It was their first losing

689
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:01,040
Speaker 3: season since nineteen fifty six, wh which was Johnny Unitas's

690
00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:03,959
Speaker 3: rookie year. Head coach Don McCafferty, who was two years

691
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:06,920
Speaker 3: removed from winning the Super Bowl, was fired after a

692
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:09,759
Speaker 3: one and four start. He was replaced by John Sandusky,

693
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:12,400
Speaker 3: the father of Jerry Sandusky, now the voice of the Ravens,

694
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 3: who you've heard on this podcast.

695
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 9: It was a clown act. He hires a general manager

696
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:21,280
Speaker 9: named Joe Thomas. In nineteen seventy one, the Baltimore Colts

697
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:25,799
Speaker 9: lose in the AFC Championship to Bob Greasy Don Shulo's

698
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 9: coaching Miami Dolphins. In nineteen seventy two, Ersa comes in

699
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:32,759
Speaker 9: with Joe Thomas. They get off to a one in

700
00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:36,040
Speaker 9: four start, and they fire the head coach, Don McCafferty,

701
00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 9: and they make my dad the interim head coach.

702
00:35:40,920 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 3: Johnny Unitas was thirty nine years old in nineteen seventy two,

703
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:45,800
Speaker 3: and he quarterbacked the first five games of the season,

704
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:48,480
Speaker 3: including the colts twenty one to zero shutout loss to

705
00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 3: the Dallas Cowboys in Week five. Thomas, the general manager,

706
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 3: fired McCafferty after that game, and he ordered Sandusky to

707
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:58,920
Speaker 3: bench Unitas, who at the time held all the NFL's

708
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,880
Speaker 3: major passing records, but at a passer rating of just

709
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 3: sixty nine point seven, and a few weeks after the season,

710
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:09,800
Speaker 3: the Colts did the unthinkable in Baltimore. They traded Unitas

711
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:15,320
Speaker 3: to the San Diego Chargers, receiving quote future considerations in return.

712
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:18,680
Speaker 3: Even though Unitas was forty, and even though Unitus was

713
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:21,400
Speaker 3: nowhere near the MVP caliber passer he was in the

714
00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:24,160
Speaker 3: fifties and sixties, and even though United has completed under

715
00:36:24,239 --> 00:36:26,560
Speaker 3: fifty percent of his passes in nineteen seventy three with

716
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:29,719
Speaker 3: the Chargers, the decision to trade the franchise legend was

717
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 3: met with scorn in Baltimore, and on the receiving end

718
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:35,520
Speaker 3: of that scorn was Joe Thomas, the general manager, and

719
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:36,400
Speaker 3: Robert Ursay.

720
00:36:36,600 --> 00:36:38,240
Speaker 6: Now, if you see any of the video with Johnny

721
00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:40,720
Speaker 6: you running around with gold pants and you know, getting

722
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:43,400
Speaker 6: killed at Three Rivers Stadium, it was just really Johnny

723
00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:45,880
Speaker 6: was old and tired, beaten up and couldn't play anymore.

724
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:49,480
Speaker 5: Baltimore didn't accept that. He didn't accept that the Steelers.

725
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:52,600
Speaker 22: Left a hammer down on Charger quarterback Johnny Unitas, forcing

726
00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:56,320
Speaker 22: the wobbly pass which Mike Wagner Vick Dahn for john Uniteds.

727
00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:59,360
Speaker 22: His first pro game played in Fittsburgh wasn't one to remember.

728
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:02,880
Speaker 22: A rate Veterans suffered two interceptions while completing two of

729
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:04,319
Speaker 22: nine for nineteen yard.

730
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:06,960
Speaker 3: But the Colts actually pulled off the transition away from

731
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:10,319
Speaker 3: a franchise legend quarterback, even if it wasn't popular with fans.

732
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:12,879
Speaker 3: That might sound familiar. Right before the Colts went from

733
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:15,320
Speaker 3: Peyton Manning to Andrew Lucke, they went from Johnny Unitis

734
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 3: to a twenty one year old kid out of LSU

735
00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:19,720
Speaker 3: selected with the second overall pick in the nineteen seventy

736
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:21,720
Speaker 3: three NFL draft, Burt Jones.

737
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 2: Twenty three seconds remaining in the first half, both backs

738
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:28,840
Speaker 2: end of block going for the touchdown.

739
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 11: The Colt Tamon whipped out.

740
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:38,080
Speaker 2: It Burt Jones the second touchdown bass of the season.

741
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:44,760
Speaker 2: He had got inspired last week. This time it's Glenn Dowdy.

742
00:37:46,640 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 3: The Colts were still bad in nineteen seventy three and

743
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:51,960
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy four, and things were chaotic behind the scenes.

744
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:55,800
Speaker 3: Howard Schnellenberger was hired and fired, and Thomas the general manager,

745
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:59,040
Speaker 3: became interim coach for eleven games. In nineteen seventy four,

746
00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:02,760
Speaker 3: he went too and nine. Stability and success, though, quickly

747
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 3: arrived with the hiring of Ted Marchibroda in nineteen seventy five.

748
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 3: Jones won NFL MVP in nineteen seventy six, and the

749
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:11,080
Speaker 3: Colts won double digit games on their way to the

750
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:13,960
Speaker 3: playoffs in three consecutive years from nineteen seventy five through

751
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:16,319
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy seven. But the Colts were a tier below

752
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 3: the dominant teams of the era, the Pittsburgh Steelers and

753
00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:21,279
Speaker 3: Oakland Raiders, and their success on the field did not

754
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:24,640
Speaker 3: lead to a resurgence in the stands at Memorial Stadium, And.

755
00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:31,040
Speaker 17: Then within three years had a contending team with Burt

756
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:33,719
Speaker 17: Jones and Roger Carr on the sack Pack and so forth.

757
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:35,759
Speaker 17: If you go back and look at those three years

758
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:39,480
Speaker 17: where they had a really good team, about half the

759
00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:44,799
Speaker 17: games were sold out and a lot of games drew

760
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 17: forty five thousand, So the dynamics had changed in Baltimore

761
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 17: at the time.

762
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:51,960
Speaker 3: These were successful years, but they were hardly the glory

763
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:54,440
Speaker 3: days of the Uniteds era. In fact, ten minutes after

764
00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:56,640
Speaker 3: losing forty to fourteen to the Steelers in the first

765
00:38:56,719 --> 00:38:59,400
Speaker 3: round of the nineteen seventy six playoffs. No one was

766
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:02,240
Speaker 3: killed when a man named Donald Kroner crashed a single

767
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:05,800
Speaker 3: engine propeller plane into the upper deck at Memorial Stadium. Fans,

768
00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:08,120
Speaker 3: lucky for them, opted to leave the game early instead

769
00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 3: of watching the Steelers roll past their team. The Colts

770
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:13,560
Speaker 3: getting blown out so badly might have actually saved some lives.

771
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:16,200
Speaker 3: And while Ersay pledged to keep the Colts in Baltimore

772
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:18,800
Speaker 3: when he acquired a team, what he didn't pledge was

773
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 3: to keep them in Memorial Stadium. Ersay was quoted as

774
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:25,440
Speaker 3: saying in the Baltimore Sun on July fourteenth, nineteen seventy two,

775
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:27,880
Speaker 3: I would be interested in having a new arena and

776
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:29,800
Speaker 3: will want to talk to the Baltimore people about it

777
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 3: whenever they wish. Shortly after Ursay took over, an audacious

778
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:36,400
Speaker 3: plan to build a seventy thousand seat, one hundred and

779
00:39:36,440 --> 00:39:39,720
Speaker 3: fourteen million dollar dome stadium that could house the Colts

780
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:43,239
Speaker 3: and Orioles was proposed. It was nicknamed the Balta Dome

781
00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 3: and was envisioned to be the next in line of

782
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 3: American multipurpose dome stadiums. Like Houston's Astrodome, Seattle's Kingdome, and

783
00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:53,560
Speaker 3: New Orleans Superdome. But the project would have required the

784
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:56,879
Speaker 3: Maryland state legislator to approve sixty million dollars in state

785
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:00,320
Speaker 3: backed bonds, and Governor Marvin Mandel refused to sa support

786
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:03,480
Speaker 3: of bill allocating those funds to the Maryland Sports Complex Authority.

787
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:07,840
Speaker 3: The project was killed and then came Question P.

788
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:15,760
Speaker 21: We had a city controller Hymen, a pressman who always

789
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:17,920
Speaker 21: put his self at their Hey, I'm fighting for the

790
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 21: little guy. He put on the ballot of Question P

791
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:24,400
Speaker 21: in a cause for declaring that, like Memorial Stadium on

792
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:27,279
Speaker 21: thirty third Street, this is a memorial to the war

793
00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:30,440
Speaker 21: veterans who lost their lives, prohibiting the use of city

794
00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:34,240
Speaker 21: funds for construction of any other stadium in the City

795
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:38,480
Speaker 21: of Baltimore. Unfortunately, Questioned Pee passed, and I think that

796
00:40:38,719 --> 00:40:42,880
Speaker 21: was basically the situation where we lost building a stadium

797
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 21: in the City of Baltimore.

798
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:47,400
Speaker 3: Effectively, it was a referendum on if Baltimore should or

799
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:50,040
Speaker 3: shouldn't build a new stadium for the Colts and Orioles,

800
00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 3: and it was hidden behind respecting the troops who died

801
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:55,640
Speaker 3: in World War Two, that's politics for you. Despite the

802
00:40:55,680 --> 00:40:58,960
Speaker 3: Baltimore Sun endorsing voters to choose no to the amendment,

803
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 3: it passed with fifty six percent of the vote. The

804
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:06,040
Speaker 3: city of Baltimore after November nineteen seventy four could no

805
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:08,880
Speaker 3: longer use public funds to build a new stadium for

806
00:41:08,920 --> 00:41:12,280
Speaker 3: the Colts and Orioles. And it didn't take Robert Ursay

807
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:14,320
Speaker 3: long to begin turning his attention elsewhere.

808
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:19,719
Speaker 17: The arms race in the NFL had begun, because you

809
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 17: look at the cookie cutter stadiums in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh

810
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:26,160
Speaker 17: and Philadelphia. Even though they were pretty basic stadiums by

811
00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 17: our standards today, they were considered state of the art

812
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:29,560
Speaker 17: back then.

813
00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:34,200
Speaker 3: Crucially, what all these new stadiums began getting were premium seating.

814
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 3: Skyboxes and club seats became additional revenue streams for teams.

815
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:42,000
Speaker 9: The landscape of the NFL changes, and Robert Ursa saw this.

816
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:43,960
Speaker 9: I will give him credit for this. I don't give

817
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:46,239
Speaker 9: him credit for much, but he saw the landscape of

818
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:50,680
Speaker 9: the NFL was changing. The owners shared revenue, but they

819
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:55,319
Speaker 9: did not share revenue on skyboxes and club seats. Well,

820
00:41:55,360 --> 00:41:59,640
Speaker 9: Memorial Stateium, Baltimore has no skyboxes and no club seats.

821
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:03,200
Speaker 3: And Memorial Stadium. There was no way the existing structure,

822
00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:06,360
Speaker 3: even with renovations, could support premium seats.

823
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:10,880
Speaker 9: And the political landscape here, well, Baltimore, We've always had

824
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:13,479
Speaker 9: a Memorial Stadium. What's wrong the Memorial Stadium? It's fine.

825
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 9: The politicians did not understand that the landscape and the

826
00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 9: league had changed. Ers starts shopping around and Baltimore politicians

827
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:23,759
Speaker 9: think he's just trying to leverage them.

828
00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 3: But Memorial Stadium, it was not fine. Even the most

829
00:42:27,280 --> 00:42:30,479
Speaker 3: diehard Baltimoreans, a group of people that still loathe Robert

830
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 3: Ursay to this day, concede that.

831
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 8: Memorial Stadium was shot.

832
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:36,080
Speaker 5: I know that for a fact.

833
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:38,879
Speaker 8: That's the only thing I'll agree with him, Bob Or saying,

834
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:44,279
Speaker 8: even back in the seventies they had problems with it. Yes,

835
00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:48,640
Speaker 8: they could have started and putting repairs into it, but

836
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 8: after a while it wouldn't have worked. With minornization, it

837
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 8: just wouldn't work. I always said, it's like putting a

838
00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 8: miniskirt on a ninety year old woman. And again I

839
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 8: reiterate the only thing I agreed with Bobs it.

840
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 9: Was it was an old horseshoe stadium. You know you

841
00:43:05,239 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 9: could have tried it. There's almost only so much lipstick

842
00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:09,640
Speaker 9: you can put on an old pig.

843
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:12,279
Speaker 3: This wasn't an issue of an owner looking to build

844
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 3: a new stadium to further line his already deep pockets.

845
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:17,799
Speaker 3: Robert Orsay, after spending every last dime of his money

846
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 3: to purchase the Colts, probably needed the income a new

847
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:22,720
Speaker 3: stadium could generate to keep his team afloat.

848
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:25,640
Speaker 19: But the NFL was back then, I don't want to

849
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:27,279
Speaker 19: say it was much more of a mom It wasn't

850
00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:28,400
Speaker 19: a mom and pop operation.

851
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:31,920
Speaker 20: I mean, it was still a huge scale, but it

852
00:43:32,200 --> 00:43:34,600
Speaker 20: wasn't like it is now, right, So they did not

853
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:36,319
Speaker 20: say to Robert or say.

854
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:38,400
Speaker 19: Well, where's your liquidity here, we want you to have

855
00:43:38,600 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 19: millions in reserve to invest in the team. That was

856
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:42,799
Speaker 19: I mean, he put up everything he had to buy

857
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:45,360
Speaker 19: the team, so he did not have a lot of

858
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:49,800
Speaker 19: money leftover, like to build his own stadium, and he

859
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 19: ultimately encountered like a lot of the issues that ultimately

860
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:56,400
Speaker 19: led to Carol Rosenblum's disenchantment in Baltimore.

861
00:43:56,880 --> 00:43:59,439
Speaker 3: Rumors of Ursay's desire to get out of Baltimore began

862
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:02,879
Speaker 3: circular in the late nineteen seventies. In nineteen seventy nine,

863
00:44:02,960 --> 00:44:06,279
Speaker 3: a remarkable scene unfolded at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville,

864
00:44:06,440 --> 00:44:08,560
Speaker 3: which at the time was vuying for an NFL franchise.

865
00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:13,640
Speaker 1: My dad Jacksonville, Florida, and some damn helicopter and getting out,

866
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:18,640
Speaker 1: you know before sixty thousand screaming fans winding.

867
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:20,799
Speaker 6: The Colts popped some ontour things. I mean, he flew

868
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:22,960
Speaker 6: to Jacksonville and ran around at the Gator Bowl. Like

869
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:24,920
Speaker 6: I have had a lot of people from Jacksonville who

870
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:27,239
Speaker 6: attended that event at the Gator Bowl nineteen seventy nine.

871
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:31,440
Speaker 5: This went on for years. The tail of the team leaving, his.

872
00:44:31,600 --> 00:44:36,520
Speaker 18: Dad famously went down to Jacksonville and they flew him

873
00:44:36,560 --> 00:44:40,360
Speaker 18: in on a helicopter at the fifty yard line and

874
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 18: the Jacksonville stadium is full. They introduced Bob Jim's dad

875
00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 18: stands up, gives him the thumbs up, doesn't say much,

876
00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:54,280
Speaker 18: gets back in the helicopter, and they never seen him again.

877
00:44:54,480 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 18: So this is you know, it's so there was always rumors,

878
00:44:57,560 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 18: you know, you see something like that.

879
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:05,280
Speaker 3: For the most part, though, these early rumors were brushed

880
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:09,000
Speaker 3: aside by players, staff and the people of Baltimore. Folks

881
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:12,719
Speaker 3: perceived Ersay as a chaotic individual. When he held press conferences,

882
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:15,080
Speaker 3: he would lash out, he would go off topic, and

883
00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 3: he would sometimes be under the influence. But even though

884
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:20,319
Speaker 3: the city of Baltimore had dealt with rumors of their

885
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 3: team leaving for a decade under multiple owners, most people

886
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:26,200
Speaker 3: didn't think the Colts would actually pick up and leave.

887
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:29,400
Speaker 21: They didn't think that the NFL would ever let a

888
00:45:29,640 --> 00:45:33,880
Speaker 21: historic franchise like the Baltimore Cults leave, And I think

889
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:36,640
Speaker 21: that might have been on mister Hayman pressman's mind too.

890
00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:40,760
Speaker 21: They'll never let the Colts leave, never let the Cults sleeve.

891
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:42,880
Speaker 9: It always felt like it was going to be an

892
00:45:42,920 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 9: acrimonious negotiation. But you have to remember Robert Ersay in

893
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 9: the media would show up to these press conferences and rambling, inebriated,

894
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:55,279
Speaker 9: making no sense whatsoever. It's a little bit like when

895
00:45:55,280 --> 00:45:58,080
Speaker 9: they always threatened to shut down the federal government, and

896
00:45:58,239 --> 00:46:00,000
Speaker 9: they always kind of figured out so the next time

897
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:01,520
Speaker 9: that threat comes along, you don't really put a lot

898
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:02,239
Speaker 9: of weight behind it.

899
00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:05,960
Speaker 3: That's how this was playing out. But as Zeeman believes,

900
00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:08,840
Speaker 3: because of the way Robert Ursay presented himself in public,

901
00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:11,520
Speaker 3: there was little chance lawmakers would have been willing to

902
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:14,399
Speaker 3: work around Question PE to build a new stadium, either

903
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:16,480
Speaker 3: in Baltimore or its surrounding suburbs.

904
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 21: How can you as a legislature, and you've got to

905
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 21: be answering to your people that I want to pack

906
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 21: the stadium project. But every time we turn around, the

907
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:29,439
Speaker 21: owner is in other cities talking about moving the football team.

908
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:31,080
Speaker 19: How can you pack that.

909
00:46:31,320 --> 00:46:33,719
Speaker 21: I mean, I'm a voter, Yeah, I'm all for it,

910
00:46:33,880 --> 00:46:35,879
Speaker 21: but wait a minute, he's talking about moving this team

911
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 21: to another city. If he would have been more savvy,

912
00:46:38,760 --> 00:46:42,839
Speaker 21: more public relations, more I love Baltimore. I don't want

913
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:44,800
Speaker 21: to move. What can we do to make this happen?

914
00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:45,400
Speaker 11: Okay?

915
00:46:45,600 --> 00:46:48,320
Speaker 21: Question P was asked that we couldn't build a stadium

916
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:52,360
Speaker 21: in Baltimore City. It didn't say we couldn't put it

917
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:56,879
Speaker 21: in an Aeroma County, Hartford County, Baltimore County. That would

918
00:46:56,920 --> 00:46:58,800
Speaker 21: be the next step, but it never made it to

919
00:46:58,880 --> 00:46:59,359
Speaker 21: that level.

920
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:02,360
Speaker 3: Well, well, Baltimore couldn't allocate money to a new stadium.

921
00:47:02,520 --> 00:47:06,160
Speaker 3: It could allocate money to renovate Memorial Stadium. Mayor William

922
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:10,160
Speaker 3: Donald Schaeffer, an immensely popular politician, began negotiating to put

923
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:13,000
Speaker 3: money into Memorial Stadium to spruce it up, but it

924
00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:13,960
Speaker 3: was never enough.

925
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:17,640
Speaker 8: Everything that he asked for. Say, he asked for three

926
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:19,920
Speaker 8: things from the state legislature on the City of Baltimore,

927
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:23,319
Speaker 8: he got, Then he wanted three more, then he wanted

928
00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:27,960
Speaker 8: two more, and finally it got to be what are

929
00:47:28,040 --> 00:47:28,800
Speaker 8: we doing this for?

930
00:47:29,640 --> 00:47:31,640
Speaker 3: As the rumor mill heated up, the Colts play on

931
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:34,800
Speaker 3: the field lagged. Jones, the star quarterback, separated his shoulder

932
00:47:34,880 --> 00:47:37,280
Speaker 3: in a preseason game against the Detroit Lions in nineteen

933
00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:39,799
Speaker 3: seventy eight. He would play in just seven games over

934
00:47:39,840 --> 00:47:41,719
Speaker 3: the next two seasons, and when he returned as the

935
00:47:41,719 --> 00:47:44,800
Speaker 3: Colts full time starter in nineteen eighty, his career was shot.

936
00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 3: One of the NFL's most promising young passers of the

937
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:50,480
Speaker 3: nineteen seventies was a shell of himself, and the Colts

938
00:47:50,520 --> 00:47:52,600
Speaker 3: went eight and twenty one with him under center in

939
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:55,640
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty and nineteen eighty one. And as the city

940
00:47:55,719 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 3: and state put money into Memorial Stadium, it's much more

941
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:02,120
Speaker 3: successful Tenant seemed to benefit more from those renovations.

942
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:05,480
Speaker 18: It seemed like whatever the Orioles wanted, they got, you know,

943
00:48:05,560 --> 00:48:07,760
Speaker 18: a new locker room there again, they were in their heyday.

944
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:10,880
Speaker 18: They won the championship and we were struggling.

945
00:48:11,080 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 3: The Orioles finished first or second in the American League

946
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:16,399
Speaker 3: East every year but one from nineteen sixty eight through

947
00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:19,040
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty three, when they beat the Philadelphiaffillies in the

948
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:22,480
Speaker 3: World Series behind twenty two year old MVP cal Ripkin Junior.

949
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:25,719
Speaker 3: The Orioles too weren't happy with their stadium situation, but

950
00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:28,920
Speaker 3: Memorial Stadium was at least good enough for them, and

951
00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:31,400
Speaker 3: again few seriously thought the Colts would pick up and

952
00:48:31,520 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 3: move back in nineteen seventy four when the Balto Dome

953
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:37,279
Speaker 3: project failed. It was the Orioles ownership that engaged in

954
00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:40,760
Speaker 3: saber rattling about moving, not the Colts and the Orioles

955
00:48:40,800 --> 00:48:42,879
Speaker 3: in the nineteen eighties, while they would only sign year

956
00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:45,680
Speaker 3: to year leases to keep playing at Memorial Stadium, that.

957
00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:48,319
Speaker 5: Period of time was very combustible.

958
00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:51,239
Speaker 6: There was no money here and it was sort of like,

959
00:48:51,360 --> 00:48:52,839
Speaker 6: do you want to save the son or the daughter,

960
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:56,080
Speaker 6: the Oriols or the Colts. And I don't think anybody

961
00:48:56,160 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 6: thought the Colts were leaving.

962
00:48:57,480 --> 00:48:57,839
Speaker 10: Oh yeah.

963
00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:01,960
Speaker 9: From nineteen seventy two to when the Colts leave in

964
00:49:02,040 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 9: eighty four, Baltimore shifted to I would say a baseball

965
00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:09,360
Speaker 9: town first and a football town second, whereas before they

966
00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:12,399
Speaker 9: were kind of equally elevated. And so by nineteen eighty four,

967
00:49:12,600 --> 00:49:15,359
Speaker 9: the Orioles, a year after winning the World Series, They've

968
00:49:15,360 --> 00:49:19,160
Speaker 9: got Cal Ripken Jr. From a city perspective, well that's

969
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:22,000
Speaker 9: eighty one games in that facility. You're playing a year

970
00:49:22,040 --> 00:49:25,480
Speaker 9: instead of six games a year, seven games a year.

971
00:49:26,080 --> 00:49:28,279
Speaker 9: So it got more use for the Orioles, and the

972
00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:31,560
Speaker 9: Orioles had definitely passed the Baltimore Colts.

973
00:49:31,920 --> 00:49:34,520
Speaker 3: The Orioles may have passed the Colts in popularity, but

974
00:49:34,640 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 3: the roots of the team were so deep within the

975
00:49:36,680 --> 00:49:40,239
Speaker 3: community that again few seriously entertained the prospect of the

976
00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:43,719
Speaker 3: team leaving. This was the franchise of Johnny Unitas and

977
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:46,839
Speaker 3: Lenny Moore of Already Donovan and Jim Parker of Wee

978
00:49:46,920 --> 00:49:50,239
Speaker 3: Bu Bank and Don Shula. Maybe it had fallen out

979
00:49:50,239 --> 00:49:53,359
Speaker 3: of favor compared to the city's much more successful baseball team,

980
00:49:53,880 --> 00:49:58,400
Speaker 3: but this was still the Baltimore Colts. But the Colts

981
00:49:58,440 --> 00:50:00,480
Speaker 3: were not going to get what they ultimately wanted and

982
00:50:00,719 --> 00:50:05,120
Speaker 3: probably needed in Baltimore. A new stadium was not a consideration.

983
00:50:06,239 --> 00:50:09,480
Speaker 3: Baltimore Mayor William Donald Shaffer, in a TV news special

984
00:50:09,520 --> 00:50:11,759
Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty four, went out of his way to

985
00:50:11,840 --> 00:50:15,440
Speaker 3: defend Memorial Stadium. He pointed to the Oriel season long

986
00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:18,360
Speaker 3: attendance of two million and believed crowds of fifty to

987
00:50:18,480 --> 00:50:21,000
Speaker 3: fifty five thousand would come back if the cult stayed

988
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:24,560
Speaker 3: in town. And he said, quote, I'm awful tired of

989
00:50:24,640 --> 00:50:27,960
Speaker 3: people saying our stadium isn't a good stadium. Ours is

990
00:50:28,000 --> 00:50:28,800
Speaker 3: a good stadium.

991
00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:32,280
Speaker 1: But they weren't given anything. And I love Don Shaeffer

992
00:50:32,400 --> 00:50:32,879
Speaker 1: good Man.

993
00:50:33,320 --> 00:50:36,560
Speaker 3: Government officials, especially the ones who set the guardrails for

994
00:50:36,640 --> 00:50:39,560
Speaker 3: Mayor Shaefer, kept missing the point. There would be no

995
00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:43,799
Speaker 3: revenue generating skyboxes added to Memorial Stadium, and the facilities

996
00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:46,760
Speaker 3: for the coaches and players were, in a word, awful.

997
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:53,120
Speaker 17: Our locker room was the same locker room in nineteen

998
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:56,279
Speaker 17: eighty three and eighty that Johnny and IIIs used in

999
00:50:56,360 --> 00:50:59,239
Speaker 17: nineteen fifty eight. It was a dungeon. You know, the

1000
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:01,919
Speaker 17: plumbing was horrible. You know, the clock on the wall

1001
00:51:02,000 --> 00:51:04,360
Speaker 17: didn't work, or the press box leaked when it rained.

1002
00:51:05,239 --> 00:51:09,000
Speaker 17: It was just a bad, crumbling stadium that was built

1003
00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:12,479
Speaker 17: for baseball, you know, So the sidelines were not great,

1004
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:15,279
Speaker 17: but so were a lot of stadiums in the league

1005
00:51:15,280 --> 00:51:17,680
Speaker 17: at that time, back in the sixties and fifties.

1006
00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:21,040
Speaker 18: It was a great stadium on game day in the

1007
00:51:21,160 --> 00:51:23,759
Speaker 18: morning when the players came in and the bathrooms were

1008
00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:27,600
Speaker 18: so bad. There was always about that much water in

1009
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:31,920
Speaker 18: the bathroom. So you'd see guys using the bathroom stalls

1010
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:35,560
Speaker 18: but their football uniforms on, holding their uniform up like

1011
00:51:35,719 --> 00:51:38,600
Speaker 18: that because there was always about that much water.

1012
00:51:39,520 --> 00:51:42,440
Speaker 3: And while drawing twenty thousand fans or thirty thousand fans

1013
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:45,200
Speaker 3: to games was a problem, as were the city's blue

1014
00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:48,120
Speaker 3: laws that prevented games from kicking off before two pm

1015
00:51:48,239 --> 00:51:50,960
Speaker 3: on Sundays, it was the lack of a new stadium,

1016
00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:54,720
Speaker 3: and specifically the lack of the much needed revenue stream

1017
00:51:54,920 --> 00:51:58,560
Speaker 3: coming from premium seats that was the problem. And then

1018
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:00,680
Speaker 3: a few things happened on the other side of the

1019
00:52:00,719 --> 00:52:04,480
Speaker 3: country that helped set in motion a landscape where Robert

1020
00:52:04,600 --> 00:52:06,680
Speaker 3: Arsay could be free to pick up and move.

1021
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:10,080
Speaker 1: It was a different time because, you know, Al Davis

1022
00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:13,360
Speaker 1: had just moved the Raiders, you know, to Los Angeles

1023
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:17,719
Speaker 1: and took on the league and won in court and

1024
00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:22,239
Speaker 1: so when my dad, because he wasn't one to really

1025
00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:25,319
Speaker 1: want to move, people think he did, but he did,

1026
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 1: but he had no choice.

1027
00:52:26,960 --> 00:52:30,279
Speaker 3: In nineteen seventy nine, Carol Rosenblum, the former Colts owner

1028
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:33,319
Speaker 3: who traded the franchise to Robert Arsay, announced the Los

1029
00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:37,040
Speaker 3: Angeles Rams would leave the LA Coliseum for Anaheim Stadium

1030
00:52:37,040 --> 00:52:40,560
Speaker 3: in Orange County. The coliseum was deteriorating, and its massive

1031
00:52:40,600 --> 00:52:43,839
Speaker 3: capacity meant games were rarely sold out, which also meant

1032
00:52:43,960 --> 00:52:48,440
Speaker 3: Rams games were frequently blacked out on local TV. Rosenbloom

1033
00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:50,919
Speaker 3: died in nineteen seventy nine, and the Rams still moved

1034
00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:53,920
Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty. That left the Colisseum vacant, but not

1035
00:52:54,080 --> 00:52:57,160
Speaker 3: for long. Two years later, Al Davis tried to move

1036
00:52:57,280 --> 00:52:59,960
Speaker 3: his Oakland Raiders to Los Angeles to play in the Coliseum.

1037
00:53:00,400 --> 00:53:02,720
Speaker 3: The NFL tried to block the move, but the Raiders

1038
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:05,279
Speaker 3: prevailed in court. They were free to go when.

1039
00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:07,279
Speaker 5: Al Davis moved the team and they couldn't chase him

1040
00:53:07,320 --> 00:53:07,680
Speaker 5: in court.

1041
00:53:08,160 --> 00:53:10,759
Speaker 6: It opened the door for every move there's ever been

1042
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:14,200
Speaker 6: of every franchise there's ever been, and Bob was one

1043
00:53:14,239 --> 00:53:16,040
Speaker 6: of the first ones to take advantage of that because

1044
00:53:16,040 --> 00:53:17,960
Speaker 6: Baltimore didn't have the money, Baltimore didn't want to put

1045
00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:18,360
Speaker 6: the money up.

1046
00:53:18,360 --> 00:53:19,720
Speaker 5: Baltimore already lost the Bullets.

1047
00:53:19,840 --> 00:53:22,960
Speaker 6: Baltimore had been through white flight, Baltimore struggling to keep

1048
00:53:22,960 --> 00:53:25,600
Speaker 6: the baseball team, which was much more beloved at that point.

1049
00:53:26,120 --> 00:53:28,800
Speaker 3: Later, Robert Orse would cite al Davis moving the Raiders

1050
00:53:28,800 --> 00:53:30,839
Speaker 3: as a reason why he was not trying to move

1051
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:33,560
Speaker 3: the Colts. In a press conference on June second, nineteen

1052
00:53:33,560 --> 00:53:36,360
Speaker 3: eighty three, Ersay said, quote, the Colts could move tomorrow

1053
00:53:36,400 --> 00:53:38,359
Speaker 3: if they wanted to. They could have moved six months

1054
00:53:38,400 --> 00:53:41,040
Speaker 3: a year ago when al Davis moved, we could have moved.

1055
00:53:41,320 --> 00:53:44,520
Speaker 3: We are not moving. We didn't move. But the Colts

1056
00:53:44,600 --> 00:53:47,880
Speaker 3: indeed were talking to other cities. And even if Colts

1057
00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:50,920
Speaker 3: fans weren't able to comprehend the team actually picking up

1058
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:54,840
Speaker 3: and leaving, the open flirtation with other cities war on

1059
00:53:54,920 --> 00:53:55,520
Speaker 3: the fan base.

1060
00:53:55,920 --> 00:53:59,320
Speaker 8: How can you support a team when the owners and

1061
00:53:59,440 --> 00:54:02,040
Speaker 8: phoenix on see, you want my Colts make me a deal.

1062
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:06,080
Speaker 8: In Jacksonville, you want my Colts make me a deal, La.

1063
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:08,120
Speaker 8: And you want my Colts make me a deal Memphis,

1064
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:09,319
Speaker 8: you want my Colts make media.

1065
00:54:09,560 --> 00:54:12,359
Speaker 3: How can you support that through all this, Robert Arsay

1066
00:54:12,400 --> 00:54:15,000
Speaker 3: became a political punching bag. If you took his approval

1067
00:54:15,080 --> 00:54:17,560
Speaker 3: rating among the people of Baltimore, he probably would have

1068
00:54:17,640 --> 00:54:19,120
Speaker 3: been pulling in the single digits.

1069
00:54:19,200 --> 00:54:21,560
Speaker 21: When mister Arsay's name came up, it didn't go in

1070
00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:22,800
Speaker 21: a favorable comment.

1071
00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:24,360
Speaker 10: He was hated.

1072
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:27,200
Speaker 21: He still is to this stay with the older fans.

1073
00:54:27,520 --> 00:54:30,040
Speaker 3: A lot of that was self inflicted by how Ersay

1074
00:54:30,080 --> 00:54:33,760
Speaker 3: presented himself in public. He churned through coaches, he got players'

1075
00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:37,160
Speaker 3: names wrong, and he would occasionally overstep his boundaries as

1076
00:54:37,160 --> 00:54:39,719
Speaker 3: an owner. He was not a native son of Baltimore.

1077
00:54:40,000 --> 00:54:42,839
Speaker 3: He was a businessman from north of Chicago, even though

1078
00:54:42,880 --> 00:54:46,160
Speaker 3: his predecessor, Carol Rosenbloom was just as much of an

1079
00:54:46,200 --> 00:54:50,359
Speaker 3: absentee owner as Ersay was. By the nineteen seventies and two,

1080
00:54:50,520 --> 00:54:52,960
Speaker 3: the fight to keep the Colts pitted Ursay against an

1081
00:54:53,040 --> 00:54:55,480
Speaker 3: extremely popular politician, The.

1082
00:54:55,600 --> 00:54:57,800
Speaker 9: Mayor of Baltimore at the time, William Donald Schaeffer, was

1083
00:54:57,800 --> 00:55:00,720
Speaker 9: a much beloved mayor. He was an id comic figure.

1084
00:55:01,239 --> 00:55:04,359
Speaker 9: You can make a pretty strong case that his administration

1085
00:55:04,640 --> 00:55:09,200
Speaker 9: and the state authority they misunderstood what Robert Ursa was

1086
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:09,640
Speaker 9: really doing.

1087
00:55:09,960 --> 00:55:12,960
Speaker 3: Jane Miller, a long time. Baltimore TV reporter recalled how

1088
00:55:13,040 --> 00:55:14,640
Speaker 3: deeply Schaeffer cared for his city.

1089
00:55:14,840 --> 00:55:16,120
Speaker 20: His whole life was Baltimore.

1090
00:55:16,760 --> 00:55:16,880
Speaker 5: You know.

1091
00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:21,400
Speaker 19: He was mayor from the nineteen seventies through the mid

1092
00:55:21,480 --> 00:55:23,480
Speaker 19: nineteen eighties when he became governor, and he served two

1093
00:55:23,560 --> 00:55:24,680
Speaker 19: terms as governor in Maryland.

1094
00:55:24,719 --> 00:55:28,719
Speaker 20: But his heart was always in Baltimore and trying to.

1095
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:32,240
Speaker 5: In some ways, trying to save Baltimore.

1096
00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:34,960
Speaker 3: The nineteen eighty season ended with a crowd of just

1097
00:55:35,040 --> 00:55:38,040
Speaker 3: twenty nine, nine hundred and thirty six watching the Colts

1098
00:55:38,160 --> 00:55:40,880
Speaker 3: lose to the Kansas City Chiefs. It was the lowest

1099
00:55:40,920 --> 00:55:43,960
Speaker 3: attendance for a regular season game at Memorial Stadium since

1100
00:55:44,000 --> 00:55:47,080
Speaker 3: the mid nineteen fifties. A year later, the Colts won

1101
00:55:47,120 --> 00:55:49,839
Speaker 3: their season opener, lost their next fourteen games, and then

1102
00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:52,520
Speaker 3: drew just thirty four, one hundred and twenty seven fans

1103
00:55:52,719 --> 00:55:55,320
Speaker 3: for their season finale against the New England Patriots.

1104
00:55:55,640 --> 00:55:57,719
Speaker 5: I was out there in nineteen eighty one and eighty two.

1105
00:55:58,040 --> 00:56:00,080
Speaker 6: I had a Pentex Cameron when the Packers came to

1106
00:56:00,160 --> 00:56:02,440
Speaker 6: town to have pictures of James Lofton when there were

1107
00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:04,320
Speaker 6: twenty thousand, thirty thousand empty seeds.

1108
00:56:04,480 --> 00:56:06,800
Speaker 3: The Colts then turned in an even worst season in

1109
00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:10,239
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty two. They went a miserable eight and one

1110
00:56:10,520 --> 00:56:14,200
Speaker 3: in that strike shortened season, and only nineteen thousand fans

1111
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:16,480
Speaker 3: showed up for their season ending blowout loss to the

1112
00:56:16,520 --> 00:56:19,840
Speaker 3: Miami Dolphins. It was just the third winless season in

1113
00:56:20,000 --> 00:56:20,720
Speaker 3: NFL history.

1114
00:56:21,239 --> 00:56:24,360
Speaker 10: When we got there in nineteen eighty two, you know,

1115
00:56:24,560 --> 00:56:26,759
Speaker 10: we were at low ebb. I mean, they had brought

1116
00:56:26,920 --> 00:56:31,279
Speaker 10: they were at the bottom. They weren't drawing flies for

1117
00:56:31,719 --> 00:56:34,400
Speaker 10: a football rich city. I mean, we weren't brought. You know,

1118
00:56:34,520 --> 00:56:36,640
Speaker 10: you went in the locker room, there was like a

1119
00:56:36,840 --> 00:56:39,680
Speaker 10: light that hung down on a cord. Seriously, you know,

1120
00:56:39,800 --> 00:56:41,719
Speaker 10: a couple of nails to put your clothes. I mean,

1121
00:56:41,880 --> 00:56:43,440
Speaker 10: it was outdated.

1122
00:56:43,880 --> 00:56:44,040
Speaker 11: You know.

1123
00:56:44,120 --> 00:56:47,319
Speaker 10: The fans still loved it, but they weren't common. They

1124
00:56:47,400 --> 00:56:49,920
Speaker 10: were down. The team was really bad, you know. So

1125
00:56:50,120 --> 00:56:54,759
Speaker 10: at that point in nineteen eighty two, there was just bitterness.

1126
00:56:54,800 --> 00:56:59,279
Speaker 10: I mean, the franchise that hit bottom, the fans that

1127
00:56:59,480 --> 00:57:03,160
Speaker 10: were angry. You know, Bob was angry with the city.

1128
00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:07,759
Speaker 10: The city was angry with Bob. So in nineteen by

1129
00:57:07,880 --> 00:57:12,080
Speaker 10: nineteen eighty three, it was a franchise in turmoil, you know,

1130
00:57:12,520 --> 00:57:13,680
Speaker 10: to put it mildly.

1131
00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:16,000
Speaker 3: Rick Venturi was in his first year as an assistant

1132
00:57:16,040 --> 00:57:18,200
Speaker 3: coach with the Colts in nineteen eighty two. The guy

1133
00:57:18,240 --> 00:57:20,920
Speaker 3: who hired him was the team's new head coach, Frank Kush.

1134
00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:28,960
Speaker 3: Kush was a legend at Arizona State, where he was

1135
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:31,800
Speaker 3: head coach from nineteen fifty eight through nineteen seventy nine.

1136
00:57:32,200 --> 00:57:35,000
Speaker 3: Arizona State, of course, is located in Tempe, a City

1137
00:57:35,240 --> 00:57:38,080
Speaker 3: just to the east of Phoenix. Sun Devil Stadium was

1138
00:57:38,120 --> 00:57:40,240
Speaker 3: a ready made place for an NFL team to play

1139
00:57:40,520 --> 00:57:43,600
Speaker 3: while a new stadium was built. And as a legendary

1140
00:57:43,640 --> 00:57:47,280
Speaker 3: coach at Arizona State, Cush developed a strong connection to

1141
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:50,800
Speaker 3: some of Arizona's most powerful people in business and politics.

1142
00:57:51,440 --> 00:57:54,280
Speaker 3: But those Arizona connections were not by the Colts hired Kush.

1143
00:57:54,680 --> 00:57:57,400
Speaker 3: They hired him to pull together a Colts team lacking

1144
00:57:57,440 --> 00:58:01,520
Speaker 3: accountability and toughness and ruled with an iron fist, which

1145
00:58:01,600 --> 00:58:03,720
Speaker 3: ultimately got him into trouble at Arizona State, where he

1146
00:58:03,800 --> 00:58:06,000
Speaker 3: was fired for hitting his punt around the sideline after

1147
00:58:06,080 --> 00:58:09,400
Speaker 3: a bad punt and then interfering in the university's investigation

1148
00:58:09,600 --> 00:58:13,080
Speaker 3: into the incident. Make no mistake, Kush was not someone

1149
00:58:13,080 --> 00:58:16,720
Speaker 3: who would take crap from anyone, players, coaches, fans or

1150
00:58:16,840 --> 00:58:17,360
Speaker 3: Robert Arse.

1151
00:58:17,680 --> 00:58:22,280
Speaker 7: I really enjoyed the fans, and I really know I

1152
00:58:22,280 --> 00:58:23,560
Speaker 7: could get into ownership, and I.

1153
00:58:23,640 --> 00:58:24,360
Speaker 6: Keep a mouth shut.

1154
00:58:24,440 --> 00:58:26,960
Speaker 3: Cush, who died in twenty seventeen, spoke about the Colts

1155
00:58:27,000 --> 00:58:29,440
Speaker 3: in an interview with Nestor Apparicio in twenty ten.

1156
00:58:29,720 --> 00:58:32,880
Speaker 9: The old man was very brilliant, biek He he knew

1157
00:58:32,880 --> 00:58:34,880
Speaker 9: what he was doing, very brilliant, great knowledge role.

1158
00:58:34,960 --> 00:58:38,280
Speaker 4: But he thought he'd knew more about football and the coaches.

1159
00:58:38,320 --> 00:58:40,720
Speaker 3: Dead reaction to the colts hiring of Kush to a

1160
00:58:40,880 --> 00:58:44,360
Speaker 3: five year, six figure a year contract was largely positive,

1161
00:58:44,680 --> 00:58:47,440
Speaker 3: and it didn't read in to his connections to Phoenix,

1162
00:58:48,040 --> 00:58:50,960
Speaker 3: even though the Colts played a preseason game at Arizona

1163
00:58:51,040 --> 00:58:55,240
Speaker 3: State's Sun Devil Stadium. Later in nineteen eighty two, Baltimore's

1164
00:58:55,280 --> 00:58:58,720
Speaker 3: Sun columnist Bob Mazel wrote that he expected Cush wouldn't

1165
00:58:58,720 --> 00:59:01,200
Speaker 3: put up with meddling from Robert or Say, which he

1166
00:59:01,320 --> 00:59:03,760
Speaker 3: said would ultimately be a good thing for the Colts.

1167
00:59:04,520 --> 00:59:07,160
Speaker 3: Kush was the seventh coach hired by Robert Ursay in

1168
00:59:07,240 --> 00:59:10,320
Speaker 3: ten years, and with a pricey five year contract. He

1169
00:59:10,520 --> 00:59:13,840
Speaker 3: was hired to turn the Colts around. They went eight

1170
00:59:13,920 --> 00:59:19,640
Speaker 3: to one in Cush's first year as head coach. That

1171
00:59:19,800 --> 00:59:22,480
Speaker 3: winless season gave the Colts another chance to stick the

1172
00:59:22,600 --> 00:59:25,800
Speaker 3: landing on moving on from an MVP quarterback. This time

1173
00:59:25,880 --> 00:59:28,400
Speaker 3: it was Burt Jones, the nineteen seventy six NFL MVP

1174
00:59:28,760 --> 00:59:31,920
Speaker 3: who was shipped to the Rams shortly after Kush was hired,

1175
00:59:32,400 --> 00:59:34,560
Speaker 3: and coming out of Stanford, was the nation's clear and

1176
00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:38,840
Speaker 3: obvious top prospect, a quarterback by the name of John Elway.

1177
00:59:38,920 --> 00:59:42,120
Speaker 14: A standout at Stanford, Elway was the most covered a

1178
00:59:42,200 --> 00:59:45,320
Speaker 14: player in the nineteen eighty three drive. The Colts had

1179
00:59:45,320 --> 00:59:47,920
Speaker 14: the first pick when Elway made it known he did

1180
00:59:48,000 --> 00:59:49,520
Speaker 14: not want to play in Baltimore.

1181
00:59:50,000 --> 00:59:52,240
Speaker 3: In the weeks before the draft, the Colts worked to

1182
00:59:52,360 --> 00:59:55,280
Speaker 3: convince Elway, who was also a star baseball player, to

1183
00:59:55,400 --> 00:59:58,040
Speaker 3: play for them if they picked him first overall. Kush,

1184
00:59:58,160 --> 01:00:01,440
Speaker 3: the former college coach, was effected of the recruiting Elway

1185
01:00:01,520 --> 01:00:04,560
Speaker 3: to come play for the Colts. It didn't work. The

1186
01:00:04,640 --> 01:00:07,560
Speaker 3: team was in disarray on and off the field. Elway

1187
01:00:07,600 --> 01:00:09,720
Speaker 3: told the Colts that if they drafted him, he'd just

1188
01:00:09,760 --> 01:00:12,240
Speaker 3: go play for George Steinbrenner in the New York Yankees.

1189
01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:16,280
Speaker 3: Farm system. There is absolutely no question. Elway's agent told

1190
01:00:16,320 --> 01:00:19,840
Speaker 3: the Baltimore son that if he's picked by Baltimore, he'll

1191
01:00:19,840 --> 01:00:24,440
Speaker 3: be a Yankee. The Colts drafted Elway anyway. General manager

1192
01:00:24,560 --> 01:00:27,320
Speaker 3: Ernie A. Corsi called as bluff. Elway was too good

1193
01:00:27,360 --> 01:00:30,400
Speaker 3: a prospect to not bring in. Hopefully, the Colts thought

1194
01:00:30,680 --> 01:00:34,960
Speaker 3: Elway would relent or a generational quarterback prospect would actually

1195
01:00:35,040 --> 01:00:38,840
Speaker 3: go play minor league baseball. It didn't work. On May second,

1196
01:00:38,960 --> 01:00:43,520
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty three, the Colts and Robert Ursay blinked. Elway

1197
01:00:43,600 --> 01:00:46,400
Speaker 3: was traded to the Denver Broncos in exchange for offensive

1198
01:00:46,440 --> 01:00:49,840
Speaker 3: tackle Chris Hinton, quarterback Mark Herman, and a nineteen eighty

1199
01:00:49,880 --> 01:00:53,240
Speaker 3: four first round pick. The decision to trade Elway came

1200
01:00:53,280 --> 01:00:56,080
Speaker 3: from the top. It was Robert Arsay who made the call.

1201
01:00:56,280 --> 01:00:59,440
Speaker 3: Of course, years later, recalled the opportunity the Colts were

1202
01:00:59,520 --> 01:01:02,080
Speaker 3: not a to capitalize on in nineteen eighty three.

1203
01:01:02,240 --> 01:01:02,680
Speaker 12: Look at the.

1204
01:01:03,240 --> 01:01:05,440
Speaker 23: Legacy of quarterbacks that we had had. You know, we

1205
01:01:05,520 --> 01:01:07,480
Speaker 23: went from United to Burt Jones and then too Elway.

1206
01:01:07,480 --> 01:01:09,680
Speaker 23: It would have been a tremendous line of succession, n

1207
01:01:09,760 --> 01:01:13,240
Speaker 23: like the Yankee center fielders, and it would have had

1208
01:01:13,280 --> 01:01:15,360
Speaker 23: a tremendous impact on the town and everything else. Now,

1209
01:01:15,360 --> 01:01:17,720
Speaker 23: whether mister Hursley would have still moved them out, I

1210
01:01:17,760 --> 01:01:19,600
Speaker 23: could protect and known he could have answered.

1211
01:01:22,680 --> 01:01:24,880
Speaker 3: The Colts actually weren't bad in nineteen eighty three, even

1212
01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:27,280
Speaker 3: after shipping off a future Hall of Fame quarterback. There

1213
01:01:27,320 --> 01:01:29,880
Speaker 3: were six and four in mid November, easily the team's

1214
01:01:29,920 --> 01:01:33,560
Speaker 3: most competitive showing in years, but then dropped five consecutive games,

1215
01:01:33,640 --> 01:01:36,800
Speaker 3: the last to Elway's Broncos in Denver down the stretch.

1216
01:01:37,520 --> 01:01:39,280
Speaker 3: The season ended with a twenty to ten win over

1217
01:01:39,280 --> 01:01:41,640
Speaker 3: the Houston Oilers in front of twenty seven thousand fans

1218
01:01:41,680 --> 01:01:45,120
Speaker 3: at Memorial Stadium. During that game, with their voices bouncing

1219
01:01:45,120 --> 01:01:47,960
Speaker 3: off thirty thousand empty seats, the fans who did show

1220
01:01:48,080 --> 01:01:50,520
Speaker 3: up let their feelings be known. For the Colts owner.

1221
01:01:50,720 --> 01:01:54,600
Speaker 11: I remember that the last game it was against the Oilers.

1222
01:01:55,160 --> 01:01:57,960
Speaker 3: Raoul a Legra was the Colts kicker. In nineteen eighty three.

1223
01:01:58,360 --> 01:02:03,120
Speaker 11: The chance in the state were not very favorable to

1224
01:02:03,240 --> 01:02:04,760
Speaker 11: Bob Ersley, to say the least.

1225
01:02:05,320 --> 01:02:07,200
Speaker 3: What were those chants? What do you remember?

1226
01:02:07,880 --> 01:02:10,240
Speaker 2: Well, it is this.

1227
01:02:11,920 --> 01:02:16,240
Speaker 9: Gyrated, it is it is as authentic as as it

1228
01:02:16,320 --> 01:02:16,600
Speaker 9: can be.

1229
01:02:17,120 --> 01:02:19,520
Speaker 24: Well, they were not nice. Let me put it this way,

1230
01:02:20,160 --> 01:02:23,960
Speaker 24: and well, the nicest one is said to say sucks,

1231
01:02:24,080 --> 01:02:28,600
Speaker 24: but there were love wars than that, and the fans

1232
01:02:28,640 --> 01:02:32,520
Speaker 24: were chanted very loud, so so that that's one of

1233
01:02:32,600 --> 01:02:36,800
Speaker 24: the things that I remember from that last game.

1234
01:02:37,400 --> 01:02:42,280
Speaker 11: I mean, we ended up winning the game, but we

1235
01:02:42,400 --> 01:02:43,520
Speaker 11: all had a feeling.

1236
01:02:43,440 --> 01:02:46,280
Speaker 3: Even through all the losing, through all the animosity towards

1237
01:02:46,320 --> 01:02:49,440
Speaker 3: Robert or say, through the economic adversity Baltimore was going through.

1238
01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:52,840
Speaker 3: The fans who loved the Colts still loved the Colts.

1239
01:02:53,560 --> 01:02:56,440
Speaker 3: Matt Booza, young wide receiver, cherished the fan support he

1240
01:02:56,520 --> 01:02:58,400
Speaker 3: received regardless of the team's success.

1241
01:02:58,800 --> 01:03:01,680
Speaker 4: I loved the blue collaress of it all, loved going

1242
01:03:01,680 --> 01:03:04,200
Speaker 4: to the Inner Harbor, and I like that kind of

1243
01:03:04,280 --> 01:03:06,880
Speaker 4: fan base. It was what some of the reputations and

1244
01:03:06,960 --> 01:03:08,680
Speaker 4: some of the other clubs, like say the forty nine

1245
01:03:08,720 --> 01:03:10,720
Speaker 4: ers was the white wine ship being cried right. This

1246
01:03:10,920 --> 01:03:12,400
Speaker 4: is at the other end of that, man. They were

1247
01:03:12,440 --> 01:03:14,920
Speaker 4: blue collar grinders, kind of what you would think of

1248
01:03:14,960 --> 01:03:16,840
Speaker 4: as a modern day Buffalo Bills fan.

1249
01:03:17,080 --> 01:03:20,160
Speaker 3: Ale Gray fondly remembers his loan year in Baltimore, where

1250
01:03:20,160 --> 01:03:22,960
Speaker 3: the Colts Corrals fan groups welcomed him to the community.

1251
01:03:23,040 --> 01:03:24,920
Speaker 3: They took him out to dinner and they expressed their

1252
01:03:24,960 --> 01:03:27,840
Speaker 3: appreciation for what he was doing while wearing the horseshoe.

1253
01:03:28,160 --> 01:03:34,080
Speaker 24: The fans were very upset, and they were really really

1254
01:03:34,200 --> 01:03:38,680
Speaker 24: good fans. I mean, I remember they they have this

1255
01:03:38,920 --> 01:03:43,880
Speaker 24: groups they used to call the Colts Corrals in various

1256
01:03:43,960 --> 01:03:48,560
Speaker 24: neighborhoods and they would imbuy the players on usually on

1257
01:03:48,720 --> 01:03:52,960
Speaker 24: Tuesdays or days off, or sometimes on Mondays, and you

1258
01:03:53,040 --> 01:03:55,680
Speaker 24: would go in and have it like a picnic with

1259
01:03:55,760 --> 01:04:00,280
Speaker 24: a fan. I went to several in The fans were

1260
01:04:00,400 --> 01:04:03,680
Speaker 24: really really supportive and nice, and it was a very

1261
01:04:03,800 --> 01:04:09,960
Speaker 24: close knit community in Baltimore between the fans and the players.

1262
01:04:10,120 --> 01:04:13,200
Speaker 24: But they did not like Bob beersa.

1263
01:04:13,280 --> 01:04:15,720
Speaker 3: And even in the early nineteen eighties, plenty of those

1264
01:04:15,840 --> 01:04:19,000
Speaker 3: championship winning Colts legends were still pillars of the community

1265
01:04:19,360 --> 01:04:21,800
Speaker 3: and players still strived to get the team back to

1266
01:04:21,880 --> 01:04:22,640
Speaker 3: its glory days.

1267
01:04:22,880 --> 01:04:25,560
Speaker 4: So the first thing that hits you is the tradition

1268
01:04:25,880 --> 01:04:28,439
Speaker 4: in Baltimore of the Colts.

1269
01:04:28,560 --> 01:04:31,000
Speaker 3: Wide receiver Matt Bozo is twenty three years old when

1270
01:04:31,040 --> 01:04:32,760
Speaker 3: he signed with the Colts in nineteen eighty two.

1271
01:04:33,200 --> 01:04:37,440
Speaker 12: I mean, there were some legendary names. Tom Matty was

1272
01:04:37,520 --> 01:04:40,280
Speaker 12: always around, you know, Johnny and Nidas with the Golden

1273
01:04:40,400 --> 01:04:42,840
Speaker 12: Arm restaurant. You know, back in those days, if you

1274
01:04:42,960 --> 01:04:45,520
Speaker 12: had a good game and you were named player of

1275
01:04:45,560 --> 01:04:47,440
Speaker 12: the game, you got to go on Monday night, you

1276
01:04:47,560 --> 01:04:51,520
Speaker 12: got to go on Johnny Uniteds's radio show and have

1277
01:04:51,760 --> 01:04:54,240
Speaker 12: dinner with him afterwards and get a little watch and

1278
01:04:54,320 --> 01:04:57,560
Speaker 12: then oh, shoot, Brooks Robinson just walked in. So there

1279
01:04:57,600 --> 01:05:01,560
Speaker 12: were just legends among legends already done with than you know,

1280
01:05:01,720 --> 01:05:04,880
Speaker 12: Lenny Moore, and so you know, you really felt like

1281
01:05:04,960 --> 01:05:07,000
Speaker 12: there was a bigger legacy there to uphold.

1282
01:05:07,360 --> 01:05:09,200
Speaker 3: That's why the threat of the team moving to plenty

1283
01:05:09,240 --> 01:05:11,240
Speaker 3: of fans and even some of the players, and definitely

1284
01:05:11,280 --> 01:05:14,560
Speaker 3: to the politicians, felt a little empty. The Baltimore Colts

1285
01:05:14,600 --> 01:05:19,080
Speaker 3: wouldn't or couldn't actually move right. But what Marylanders maybe

1286
01:05:19,200 --> 01:05:21,360
Speaker 3: didn't grasp at the time as the nineteen eighty three

1287
01:05:21,440 --> 01:05:24,120
Speaker 3: season came to an end, was that Robert Arsa, behind

1288
01:05:24,200 --> 01:05:27,919
Speaker 3: his chaotic persona, was a businessman. He was losing money,

1289
01:05:28,520 --> 01:05:30,760
Speaker 3: and businessmen don't just sit back and lose money.

1290
01:05:30,920 --> 01:05:35,160
Speaker 10: It was volatile. You know, he wasn't making any money.

1291
01:05:35,240 --> 01:05:38,800
Speaker 10: He was losing money in Baltimore, and so there was

1292
01:05:38,920 --> 01:05:41,600
Speaker 10: just nothing good about it. I mean, there just wasn't

1293
01:05:41,640 --> 01:05:42,560
Speaker 10: anything good about it.

1294
01:05:42,760 --> 01:05:45,240
Speaker 3: But for Robert Ursay to actually follow through on picking

1295
01:05:45,320 --> 01:05:47,400
Speaker 3: up and moving the Colts, he needed a city to

1296
01:05:47,440 --> 01:05:49,920
Speaker 3: welcome his ball club. There was a new dome being

1297
01:05:49,960 --> 01:05:52,600
Speaker 3: built in America's heartland, and there was a booming desert

1298
01:05:52,680 --> 01:05:54,959
Speaker 3: metropolis interested in becoming an NFL city.

1299
01:05:55,320 --> 01:05:59,880
Speaker 11: We knew we were done. Basically, it was a talk

1300
01:06:00,080 --> 01:06:00,920
Speaker 11: in the locker room.

1301
01:06:01,080 --> 01:06:04,440
Speaker 24: You know, we knew that we were we were going

1302
01:06:04,520 --> 01:06:08,560
Speaker 24: to be either in Phoenix or in Indianapolis. That's what

1303
01:06:08,760 --> 01:06:12,720
Speaker 24: the rumor was, and which Seedy put up the the

1304
01:06:12,800 --> 01:06:16,760
Speaker 24: best package that was going to be the siding factor.

1305
01:06:17,240 --> 01:06:19,360
Speaker 3: As it turns out, the Phoenix cults were a real,

1306
01:06:20,120 --> 01:06:23,680
Speaker 3: very real possibility. We'll get to that in a later episode,

1307
01:06:24,040 --> 01:06:26,040
Speaker 3: but coming up on episode two of The Move is

1308
01:06:26,080 --> 01:06:31,160
Speaker 3: how Indianapolis, Naptown and often overlooked Midwestern city, built itself

1309
01:06:31,280 --> 01:06:33,640
Speaker 3: up to land and NFL franchise.

1310
01:06:34,000 --> 01:06:37,280
Speaker 10: The nickname was Naptown, which was that sleepy little town

1311
01:06:37,400 --> 01:06:38,080
Speaker 10: in Indiana.

1312
01:06:38,600 --> 01:06:41,320
Speaker 9: It was the Indy five hundred and was basketball.

1313
01:06:41,560 --> 01:06:46,720
Speaker 7: I think this very very possible, if not likely, that

1314
01:06:46,880 --> 01:06:51,840
Speaker 7: had the Pacers ended up moving that there, the public

1315
01:06:52,440 --> 01:06:56,240
Speaker 7: would have shook their head and said no to further

1316
01:06:56,400 --> 01:06:59,480
Speaker 7: investment in sport. That would that was that was a big,

1317
01:06:59,640 --> 01:07:02,560
Speaker 7: big thing that occurred that kind of clearved the wave

1318
01:07:02,680 --> 01:07:05,240
Speaker 7: for the Colts still eventually come here.

1319
01:07:05,480 --> 01:07:07,640
Speaker 18: When they first started talking about building the dome and

1320
01:07:07,840 --> 01:07:10,160
Speaker 18: you know all that sort of thing, you're kind of like, yeah, right, okay,

1321
01:07:10,400 --> 01:07:11,200
Speaker 18: you don't have a team.

1322
01:07:11,720 --> 01:07:13,840
Speaker 5: Really, you know, what's this going to look like?

1323
01:07:14,200 --> 01:07:18,240
Speaker 1: Andy just did something which is unheard of, is they

1324
01:07:18,440 --> 01:07:22,680
Speaker 1: built a new stadium and back then a dome stadium

1325
01:07:22,800 --> 01:07:25,040
Speaker 1: which they are very few of them, and they didn't

1326
01:07:25,080 --> 01:07:26,720
Speaker 1: have a team, you know, I mean, it's like.

1327
01:07:26,800 --> 01:07:32,880
Speaker 7: What It's this incredible story of one thing building upon another.

1328
01:07:34,800 --> 01:07:38,880
Speaker 7: It's one of the great American success stories in sports.

1329
01:07:39,160 --> 01:07:42,120
Speaker 7: The attraction of the Colts was a huge part of that.

1330
01:07:43,800 --> 01:07:46,800
Speaker 5: The story of how Indianapolis landed the Colts is coming.

1331
01:07:46,680 --> 01:07:49,640
Speaker 9: Up next on episode two of The Move right here

1332
01:07:49,720 --> 01:07:51,120
Speaker 9: on the Colts Audio Network.

1333
01:07:51,600 --> 01:07:53,880
Speaker 5: The episode will be released on July first.

1334
01:07:54,360 --> 01:07:56,720
Speaker 9: Episode one of The Move was written and narrated by

1335
01:07:56,840 --> 01:08:01,440
Speaker 9: JJ Snakobitz and produced by Casey Valiant. Ber Daro, Dave Nickerbocker,

1336
01:08:01,520 --> 01:08:04,120
Speaker 9: and Matt Taylor contributed with research and editor