Speaker 1: Last time I talked to you, and Steadman, you were
Speaker 1: a bad man, So I don't want to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Let me ask the first question.
Speaker 3: Okay, what y Let me ask one thing?
Speaker 4: What is all this about?
Speaker 5: It's Saturday, January twentieth, nineteen eighty four. Robert Arsay, the
Speaker 5: owner of the Baltimore Colts, is just inside the doors
Speaker 5: of a building at Baltimore Washington International Airport. He's flanked
Speaker 5: to his left by William Donald Schaeffer, the Mayor of Baltimore.
Speaker 5: In front of him is a stand with several microphones
Speaker 5: bearing the logos of Baltimore news stations. It's a press
Speaker 5: conference and is being carried live on TV in Baltimore.
Speaker 5: Local stations preempted the dukes of Hazzard and Webster for this,
Speaker 5: and it was called by Robert, who had just flown
Speaker 5: from Las Vegas to Baltimore to address a bombshell report.
Speaker 4: Let me put in ahead, good on the on the
Speaker 4: h give.
Speaker 3: Me a let me break, Let the mayor have a chance,
Speaker 3: but thank.
Speaker 6: You in the newspaper.
Speaker 7: In the newspaper today, there was a story that said
Speaker 7: Robert Arsay was in Arizona and that the rolls mister.
Speaker 4: I am.
Speaker 7: I told everyone that you told me if you were
Speaker 7: going to move the team, ever going to move the team,
Speaker 7: you'll tell me first what.
Speaker 1: They're let me all we get this over real fast.
Speaker 1: I haven't been in Arizona. I haven't been in a
Speaker 1: zero Arizona. I had been in three four places where
Speaker 1: I got working machines going my own companies.
Speaker 3: I haven't been in Phoenix. I give you my word
Speaker 3: of honor. I'm a good Catholic. I haven't been in Arizona.
Speaker 3: Where tow does all come from?
Speaker 8: Who started?
Speaker 6: Is?
Speaker 3: I don't want to talk to you. I don't want
Speaker 3: to talk to you.
Speaker 9: The Governor's aid had mentioned that last night to the media,
Speaker 9: and that's where.
Speaker 3: I want to give you my word of honor.
Speaker 1: I have not been in Arizona, UH for the last
Speaker 1: digitable days.
Speaker 9: Did you have a meeting plan today with I.
Speaker 3: Didn't have any meetings planned. I don't know where else
Speaker 3: comes from. Don Schaeffer's my friend.
Speaker 5: The report, in fact was true. Ersay and the Colts
Speaker 5: had come to a handshake agreement with Arizona businessman Anthony Nikolay,
Speaker 5: who was a close friend of then head coach Frank
Speaker 5: Cush's as well as Arizona government officials to relocate the
Speaker 5: Baltimore Colts to Phoenix. Nikolai had been working on a
Speaker 5: deal to get the Colts to move to Phoenix since
Speaker 5: January fifth, which was a little over a week after
Speaker 5: the colts nineteen eighty three season ended. A meeting between Ursay, Nikolai,
Speaker 5: and Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt was scheduled for Friday, January nineteenth,
Speaker 5: and there was a good chance that by the end
Speaker 5: of that meeting the Baltimore Colts would have become the
Speaker 5: Arizona Back At Colts headquarters in Owings Mills, Maryland, Pete Ward,
Speaker 5: who's now the Colts Chief operating officer, stopped by General
Speaker 5: Manager Ernie at Corsi's office that Friday and found him
Speaker 5: finishing up a phone call with Robert Ursay.
Speaker 7: January nineteenth of nineteen eighty four, and I was an
Speaker 7: administrat assistant. I was down the hall from the General Manager,
Speaker 7: Ernie A. Corsi. Jim Orsay was in Tampa for the
Speaker 7: Super Bowl that year. I was delivering a document to
Speaker 7: our general manage at the time into his office and
Speaker 7: he was on the phone with mister Ersay, and he
Speaker 7: hung up It was me and one other person, the
Speaker 7: director of marketing, who was a close friend to Ernie
Speaker 7: Speck then and he said, we're moving the Phoenix. We're moving.
Speaker 7: And he looked at me and I was cheap labor.
Speaker 7: And he said, I'm going to need you to help,
Speaker 7: you know, with the logistics, because I was part of
Speaker 7: my job was buses and things like that. And that
Speaker 7: was the extent of it. And I went back to
Speaker 7: my office and I was like, you know, kind of
Speaker 7: in shock, but also excited because you know, I I've
Speaker 7: been through Phoenix, and I appealed to me, you know,
Speaker 7: and I think the first thing I did was call
Speaker 7: my parents. I said, my I was just told we're
Speaker 7: moving the Phoenix.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 7: I don't know when, but it's you know, I don't
Speaker 7: know when yet, you know. And then twenty minutes later,
Speaker 7: I get called down to Ernie's office. I get Paige
Speaker 7: Pete Warick into my office. I went down there and
Speaker 7: he's on the phone again and he hung up the phone.
Speaker 7: He's with mister. He said, yeah, Bob okay, okay, Bob okay.
Speaker 7: And he hung up the phone and he said, somebody
Speaker 7: from the Governor's office in Arizona leaked a deal and
Speaker 7: he's pulling out. He wants me to call a press
Speaker 7: conference airport tonight. And then he looked at me and
Speaker 7: he goes, what the fuck.
Speaker 4: Is he doing?
Speaker 5: That meeting between URSA and the Arizona folks that was
Speaker 5: supposed to be on January nineteenth, it never happened. News
Speaker 5: of the deal had hit newspapers in radio airwaves across
Speaker 5: the country. First the meeting was delayed, then it was canceled.
Speaker 5: Nikolay held out hope the deal could be revived, he
Speaker 5: later told the Arizona Republic, until Robert Orsay showed up
Speaker 5: at BWY, ostensibly to clear the air with that press conference.
Speaker 3: Now, why would I want to go to Arizona?
Speaker 9: Did mister nicol come to you?
Speaker 1: Mister nikola is a friend of mine has He's a
Speaker 1: friend of Frank Cush's.
Speaker 3: Now you just put this in your bag. He's a
Speaker 3: friend of Frank Cush's, not mine.
Speaker 9: Did he offer me?
Speaker 3: I don't he offered me whatever I want money. I
Speaker 3: am not any intention to moving to goddamn team. If
Speaker 3: I did, I would tell you about it. Okay, stay here,
Speaker 3: I said, if I have an intention of the movement team.
Speaker 3: I would tell you about it.
Speaker 5: Ersay with the city of Baltimore, watching was continually pressed
Speaker 5: by the media on reports of the deal, and he
Speaker 5: continued to deny there ever was a deal in place.
Speaker 3: Now we have no deal with mister Tony.
Speaker 1: Tony is a friend Anthony Nikolai is a friend of
Speaker 1: Frank Cushi's not mine. I only saw him once. That's
Speaker 1: I can't picture what all this is about.
Speaker 9: Was that in Chicago two weeks ago, sir?
Speaker 3: He was He was my guest in Chicago two weeks ago.
Speaker 9: That's supposedly when this deal was formulated.
Speaker 3: There was no deal formulated.
Speaker 9: Okay, weren't you supposed to meet the governor of Arizona.
Speaker 3: To No, absolutely not. I don't want to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Everybody else I.
Speaker 3: Don't want to talk to you. Some other questions.
Speaker 9: Why would he say that? Why would he say, I
Speaker 9: don't call him.
Speaker 5: The whole scene that unfolded on live TV gripped the
Speaker 5: city of Baltimore, a city that, for all the rumors
Speaker 5: about the Colts leaving over the last six or seven years,
Speaker 5: collectively didn't believe the Colts would actually pick up and leave.
Speaker 5: A reporter then asked your say, if you would pledge
Speaker 5: to keep the Colts in Baltimore, how strong would you Baltimore.
Speaker 1: I'm very strong about it. I have no problems with
Speaker 1: the mayor. I have a very fine lease, all right.
Speaker 1: I let me tell you.
Speaker 9: Sign the contract for the mayor. Now we signed the
Speaker 9: contract with the stadium for the night.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you I flew a couple thousand miles
Speaker 1: to be here tonight, and I don't need any aggregation,
Speaker 1: all right. And I only came because of him. Because
Speaker 1: of him, and I told you I flew a lot
Speaker 1: of miles today. That's my plane out there, and that
Speaker 1: burned burns a lot of fuel. I come over to
Speaker 1: tell you I don't know what the hell is about,
Speaker 1: only because Anthony Nikolai made a statement.
Speaker 3: Now, why don't you make a statement.
Speaker 9: Well, I think, speaking on behalf of the media, we
Speaker 9: love the Colts, and we want to make sure, behalf
Speaker 9: of everyone who lives here that it stays there.
Speaker 3: If you love the Colts, why didn't you treat me right?
Speaker 1: I'm going to send you some articles this man here
Speaker 1: number one insteading a couple of others hang me all
Speaker 1: the time?
Speaker 3: What do you hang me for?
Speaker 9: That's a reporter for a local paper that you're referring to.
Speaker 3: Now I'm reforting to read the papers. What do you
Speaker 3: hang me for?
Speaker 9: You want me here?
Speaker 3: Why do you hang me?
Speaker 9: What are you hang me for?
Speaker 7: Took the plane to Baltimore that night and kind of
Speaker 7: reiterated his commitment to Baltimore. But no one believed in
Speaker 7: our relationship with our fan base in Baltimore was blown
Speaker 7: to hell. It was surreal. Okay, it was stunning. It
Speaker 7: was just Baltimore had broken away from the regular program.
Speaker 7: It was live broadcast live on Baltimore TV. All the
Speaker 7: satellite trucks were there, and it was just, you know,
Speaker 7: a surreal scene. And then what kept running through my
Speaker 7: mind is how are we going to salvage this? You know,
Speaker 7: with our fans and with the city. How are we
Speaker 7: going to sal What are we going to do from here?
Speaker 5: You know, Ward didn't know it at the time, No
Speaker 5: one with the Colts did. As they picked up the
Speaker 5: pieces of an irrevocably shattered relationship with the city of Baltimore.
Speaker 5: But what the cults are going to do from there?
Speaker 5: From that moment at bw I, they were going to
Speaker 5: move to Indianapolis. This is episode three of The Move Mayflower.
Speaker 5: Over the seven or so minutes Robert Ursay's press conference
Speaker 5: was on live TV in Baltimore, plenty of people who
Speaker 5: didn't believe the Colts would skip town. They changed their minds.
Speaker 5: This was the team of Johnny Unitas, the team that
Speaker 5: brought Baltimore its first championship, and the team that finally
Speaker 5: allowed the city to compete against its East Coast rivals.
Speaker 5: But now folks thought they actually were going to leave.
Speaker 5: A WBALTV news special in January nineteen eighty four after
Speaker 5: that press conference featured some comments from less than optimistic Baltimoreans.
Speaker 5: One citizen said he felt like Robert Ursay had made
Speaker 5: up his mind the team was leaving. Another looked into
Speaker 5: the camera and begged, saying, quote, please do not take
Speaker 5: our Baltimore Colts away from us. Among those folks trending
Speaker 5: toward pessimism was William Donald Schaffer, the immensely popular mayor
Speaker 5: of Baltimore, who stood next to Ursay in that press conference.
Speaker 5: He shuffled side to side, He gazed down, then up,
Speaker 5: and he wore an exasperated look on his face. After
Speaker 5: the press conference, Schaefer, who had steadfastly remained optimistic he
Speaker 5: would work out a deal with Ersay to keep the
Speaker 5: Colts in Baltimore. Was asked if he was confident the
Speaker 5: city's football team would stay put. His answer was a
Speaker 5: strong no. According to the Arizona Republic, that was a
Speaker 5: significant change in his tone. Back at Colts headquarters, things
Speaker 5: went back to normal for the football side of the building.
Speaker 5: Rick Venturrey, who's now a color analyst on the Colts
Speaker 5: Radio network, was entering his third season as an assistant coach.
Speaker 5: The weekend the Arizona deal imploded. He and other coaches
Speaker 5: were told to not go anywhere and stay by their
Speaker 5: phones since the team might wind up being the Arizona
Speaker 5: Colts within hours, if not days. But after that press conference,
Speaker 5: it was fair to think this was just yet another false.
Speaker 11: Alarm and got really quiet after the Arizona thing, and
Speaker 11: it was almost as if, you know, well, maybe this
Speaker 11: is just another threat like Jacksonville had been a couple
Speaker 11: of years before.
Speaker 5: Things were different though for the Colt's business operations. Plenty
Speaker 5: of folks on that side of the building were Maryland natives,
Speaker 5: and there were folks who probably wouldn't join the team
Speaker 5: in a new city and from a business standpoint too,
Speaker 5: the lack of certainty about where the Colts would actually
Speaker 5: be playing in nineteen eighty four, but plenty of stress
Speaker 5: on staff members total unpredictability.
Speaker 7: It was a very unsettling time. It didn't really know
Speaker 7: it still had not issued season ticket renewals or renewals
Speaker 7: with our sponsors, you know, and our car dealers and
Speaker 7: all that sort of things. So it was really a
Speaker 7: tough time for a lot of employees.
Speaker 5: After Phoenix fell through, Memphis popped up in the relocation
Speaker 5: rumor mill, but that was dispelled pretty quickly. Weeks went
Speaker 5: by with the specter of the team moving still hanging around,
Speaker 5: though nothing close to that two day stretch in January
Speaker 5: had materialized. But again, the lasting effect of the near
Speaker 5: miss in Arizona and the ensuing press conference was a
Speaker 5: lingering feeling in Baltimore that the Colts were going to
Speaker 5: move somewhat quickly and otherwise off the map. Midwestern city,
Speaker 5: a city which was putting the finishing touches on a
Speaker 5: sixty thousand seat dome stadium, raced to the forefront of
Speaker 5: the rumor mill. Indianapolis, Indiana, State and local officials in
Speaker 5: Maryland were aware of the Colts talks with Indianapolis, which
Speaker 5: picked up steam in the days and weeks after the
Speaker 5: Phoenix deal fell through, and negotiations with Phoenix and the
Speaker 5: city of Baltimore were still ongoing with the Colts. Although
Speaker 5: Indianapolis had a major advantage they already had the dome
Speaker 5: Robert or Say wanted, Bill Baltimore was nowhere near building
Speaker 5: a new stadium. They were still negotiating renovations to Memorial Stadium,
Speaker 5: and Phoenix promised a dome but hadn't begun building one yet.
Speaker 12: In Arizona, there was nothing there.
Speaker 5: Colts owner and CEO Jim Er say, oh, yeah, come.
Speaker 12: And play in a college stadium. You know, we're the
Speaker 12: cow's team plays. And you know, as far as the
Speaker 12: new stadium, we have nothing on that yet for you, buddy.
Speaker 12: And oh, by the way, you're probably gonna have to
Speaker 12: sell at least forty nine fifty you know, uh to
Speaker 12: you know, several different businessmen in Arizona.
Speaker 2: I mean, there was no way.
Speaker 5: And while some Baltimore officials were still trying to pitch
Speaker 5: Robert Ursay on staying in town, others realized they were
Speaker 5: out of options to cut a deal with the Colts.
Speaker 5: And perhaps it was time to operate not with the
Speaker 5: Olive branch, but with the Bayonet. On March second, nineteen
Speaker 5: eighty four, Mark Wasserman, who was an aid to Mayor Schaefer,
Speaker 5: wrote a memo presenting a last ditch but aggressive option
Speaker 5: to keep the Colts in Baltimore. It read quote, I
Speaker 5: can't help but assume that Ers has himself so boxed
Speaker 5: in that there was almost nothing left but for him
Speaker 5: to move the franchise, even if the Indianapolis deal were
Speaker 5: to fall through this morning. The situation here is so
Speaker 5: badly deteriorated that it would be virtually impossible to think
Speaker 5: that he would or could remain here. I find it
Speaker 5: hard to believe that we are going to sit back
Speaker 5: and watch him go without so much as a whimper.
Speaker 5: After the mistreatment that we you have been subjected to.
Speaker 5: For my money, what little there is, we ought to
Speaker 5: take our best shot and complicate the move any way
Speaker 5: we can. I recommend that you consider seriously seeking council
Speaker 5: passage of a condemnation ordinance today, and couple that with
Speaker 5: seeking an injunction a condemnation ordinance otherwise known as eminent domain.
Speaker 8: They threatened because the negotiations have become so acrimonious.
Speaker 5: Jerry Sandusky is a Baltimore native who's now the voice
Speaker 5: of the Ravens.
Speaker 8: They floated the threat. They didn't make the direct threat,
Speaker 8: but they flowed the idea that they were going to
Speaker 8: initiate eminent domain, basically saying the culture so valuable to
Speaker 8: this community, the city now owns the Cults, kind of
Speaker 8: like a dictatorship taking over the oil factory or the
Speaker 8: lumber factory.
Speaker 5: You've probably heard of local, state, or federal government officials
Speaker 5: claiming eminent domain over private property to build infrastructure, a highway,
Speaker 5: public works, et cetera. But claiming eminent domain over a
Speaker 5: football team. That's a stretch, right, you'd think so. But
Speaker 5: earlier in the decade, the city of Oakland claimed eminent
Speaker 5: domain over the Raiders when al Davis i to move
Speaker 5: to Los Angeles. The Raiders took the City of Oakland
Speaker 5: to court and the eminent domain claim was dismissed with prejudice,
Speaker 5: meaning it could not be refiled. The City of Oakland, though,
Speaker 5: appealed to a higher court and had the ruling reversed
Speaker 5: in nineteen eighty two. The case would go to trial
Speaker 5: in granting the appeal. The court cited a government code
Speaker 5: that read quote, A city may acquire by eminent domain
Speaker 5: any property necessary to carry out any of its powers
Speaker 5: or functions effectively. If Baltimore could shoe having the Colts,
Speaker 5: a team so entrenched in their community and so entwined
Speaker 5: with citizens civic pride was necessary to carry out the
Speaker 5: city's powers or functions, maybe it had a shot at
Speaker 5: least to mess things up for the Colts. The case
Speaker 5: of the City of Oakland versus the Oakland Raiders was
Speaker 5: still ongoing in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 13: There was a lot going on about the stadium, about
Speaker 13: eminent domain, about trying to do something to force the
Speaker 13: team to stay in Baltimore.
Speaker 5: Jane Miller was a longtime reporter for Channel eleven in Baltimore.
Speaker 13: And I think there was some skepticism generally about whether
Speaker 13: you could do that.
Speaker 5: The Raiders, despite ongoing litigation with not just the City
Speaker 5: of Oakland but an anti trust suit against the NFL,
Speaker 5: still were able to move to Los Angeles in nineteen
Speaker 5: eighty two. Al Davis had made plans to move to
Speaker 5: Los Angeles long before the nineteen eighty one season ended,
Speaker 5: which was a much more normal relocation timeline as far
Speaker 5: as Baltimore was concerned, because the Colts hadn't entered in
Speaker 5: agreement with another city, maybe they had a shot to
Speaker 5: really mess things up. War forced Robert or say to
Speaker 5: sell the team to an owner who would keep them
Speaker 5: in Baltimore.
Speaker 12: It's very clear you know what the eminent domain law
Speaker 12: was and what it potentially meant to destroy in your business.
Speaker 12: But what's even more clear is their intent to fight.
Speaker 12: That's a message I think that forced them to make
Speaker 12: a decision.
Speaker 5: A headline in the Baltimore Sun on March sixth, nineteen
Speaker 5: eighty four read quote legal scholar thinks eminent domain could
Speaker 5: hold the key. The article is an interview with a
Speaker 5: law professor at NYU who thought, based on Oakland's chances
Speaker 5: of continuing to emerge with favorable judgments in court against
Speaker 5: the Raiders, as well as a few other recent other
Speaker 5: uses of eminent domain, that the city of Baltimore's best
Speaker 5: shot at keeping the Colts was by pulling that lever.
Speaker 5: That was hardly the only article in the Baltimore Sun
Speaker 5: floating or even encouraging the idea of local government using
Speaker 5: eminent domain to keep the Colts That's how dire the
Speaker 5: circumstances were for a state and local government that didn't
Speaker 5: seriously consider the Colts moving until they got to the
Speaker 5: goal line. With Phoenix still as the day's blood off
Speaker 5: the calendar, in March, the prospect of the Colts relocating
Speaker 5: for the nineteen eighty four season seemed to dwindle. The
Speaker 5: immediate threat that presented itself in January maybe was fading.
Speaker 5: TV news stations still covered every meeting or rumor about
Speaker 5: the possibility of the Colts leaving town, but internally within
Speaker 5: the organization there was doubt as to whether the team
Speaker 5: would actually relocate in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 7: I and every other employee didn't really know what was
Speaker 7: going to happen. And by March twenty seven to twenty eighth,
Speaker 7: there's no way we're moving. It's too late in the year.
Speaker 7: You know, we have the draft coming up in a
Speaker 7: few weeks, and we got Mini camp a week after that,
Speaker 7: and then we got training camp coming up then, and
Speaker 7: it was just and we you know, we'd have to
Speaker 7: sell season tickets and all that sort of thing. It
Speaker 7: was just it was so as unbelievable when and when
Speaker 7: it happened, you.
Speaker 5: Know, How it happened and why the Colts had to
Speaker 5: leave Baltimore in the cover of darkness started with an
Speaker 5: under the radar action by the Maryland State Senate. On
Speaker 5: March twenty seventh, nineteen eighty four, a bill was brought
Speaker 5: to the floor of the Maryland State Senate by Thomas Bromwell,
Speaker 5: a state senator from Baltimore County. The legislation would grant
Speaker 5: the City of Baltimore power to claim eminent domain over
Speaker 5: the Colts. According to a Baltimore Sun News blurb in
Speaker 5: the Morning paper on March twenty eighth, the bill quote
Speaker 5: slipped quietly through the State Senate by a resounding vote
Speaker 5: of thirty eight to four. It was expected to fly
Speaker 5: through the Maryland House and quickly be signed into law.
Speaker 5: But for the Baltimore Colts, there was nothing quiet about
Speaker 5: the bill passing through a chamber of Maryland's Assembly with
Speaker 5: very little opposition. The message was clear the state and
Speaker 5: city government were coming for the Colts. So what did
Speaker 5: the club do?
Speaker 14: I lived at an apartment called Morningside Heights where a
Speaker 14: lot of the players lived in.
Speaker 6: It over looked the complex, so I was that close.
Speaker 5: John Scott was the Colt's equipment manager in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 14: So that was a Tuesday, and about ten o'clock at night,
Speaker 14: I get a telephone call, pick it up and I
Speaker 14: recognize the voice right away. It's Jim Mersey and it's Johnny.
Speaker 6: It's Jim Talks.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 6: I just talked to my dad. We're moving. It's twenty
Speaker 6: seventh at night.
Speaker 7: I go, oh my gosh, I said.
Speaker 14: When he said tomorrow, I'm like, oh my gosh. Then
Speaker 14: I said phoenix fingers crossed, and there's a long pause.
Speaker 14: He goes, no, Indie, and then he told.
Speaker 6: Me, hey, you got to keep this quiet.
Speaker 14: You can't tell any of the staff working with the culture,
Speaker 14: can't tell your friends. You got to keep it quiet
Speaker 14: from your family.
Speaker 6: I'm going, oh my gosh, what is going on?
Speaker 14: And it was, you know, didn't know at the time
Speaker 14: that the State of Maryland, see they're trying to get
Speaker 14: the team to eminent domain.
Speaker 5: Colts Vice president and general counsel Michael Chernoff recalled seeing
Speaker 5: the eminent domain blurb in the Baltimore Sun tucked away
Speaker 5: in a note section deep within the paper and feeling like,
Speaker 5: as he told The New York Times later in nineteen
Speaker 5: eighty four quote. They were putting a gun to mister
Speaker 5: Orsay's head and cocking the trigger and for saying the
Speaker 5: Colts they didn't have time to figure out if that
Speaker 5: gun was loaded or not.
Speaker 12: The bottom line is they forced him to move because
Speaker 12: they were gonna, you know, eminent domain means for those
Speaker 12: people who've never heard of the laws, is it means,
Speaker 12: you know, the city, you know, we're building a new
Speaker 12: highway for the public interests.
Speaker 2: We're gonna, you know, claim your house.
Speaker 12: And it says your house is worth two hundred thousand,
Speaker 12: so you have to you don't have a choice here
Speaker 12: to do the one hundred thousand. Get out of your
Speaker 12: house because the highway's coming to here. They were going
Speaker 12: to try to use that on the football team that okay,
Speaker 12: we're taking the Colts because it has to stay here
Speaker 12: for the public interest.
Speaker 5: Scott, the equipment manager, slipped into the Colts Owings Mills
Speaker 5: facility at four o'clock in the morning on March twenty eighth.
Speaker 5: He shut the doors to the team's equipment room and
Speaker 5: he started packing an NFL team, knowing he had barely
Speaker 5: twenty four hours to complete a job that otherwise would
Speaker 5: have taken weeks, if not months.
Speaker 6: Then it was so surreal.
Speaker 14: As I'm doing it packing the uniforms, I'm going I
Speaker 14: wonder if the colors are going to change.
Speaker 6: I wonder if the name is going to show.
Speaker 14: These things going through my head as I'm packing it up,
Speaker 14: and still I pinch mysel am I dreaming this thing.
Speaker 5: Business side employees, front office staffers, and coaches all showed
Speaker 5: up to work that morning in Owings Mills like it
Speaker 5: was a normal day. The coaches went to work with
Speaker 5: our usual schedule. They had meetings on football in the morning,
Speaker 5: and then they had meetings on the upcoming NFL draft
Speaker 5: in the afternoon. The Colts had two first round picks
Speaker 5: that year, their own number eight overall and the nineteenth
Speaker 5: overall pick acquired from the Denver Broncos in nineteen eighty
Speaker 5: three's John Elway trade. There was plenty of work to do.
Speaker 11: It was about mid and my good friend rested in cheace.
Speaker 11: Hal Hunter was my good friend and one of our assistants,
Speaker 11: and he was real close to Frank and he stopped
Speaker 11: me in the hallway and whisper, he whispered, hey, listen,
Speaker 11: don't go home tonight. After work coach is coming back.
Speaker 11: And coach wasn't even in town, and he wasn't in
Speaker 11: town a lot in those days during the offseason. So
Speaker 11: he said, he's coming back in town. We're going to
Speaker 11: have a meeting about six o'clock, he said, So, you know,
Speaker 11: just don't make any plans. I think it's important. And
Speaker 11: we didn't say very much after that. Everybody just kind
Speaker 11: of I went about my business and he said, now,
Speaker 11: don't say anything to anybody.
Speaker 5: News of the teams and pending moved to Indianapolis was
Speaker 5: kept under strict need to know orders. Not all staffers
Speaker 5: are going to leave Baltimore with the team, and legitimately,
Speaker 5: there was a risk that if the wrong person found
Speaker 5: out something was up, the whole move could fall apart,
Speaker 5: because if the wrong person found out and the wrong
Speaker 5: person let the media know, then the state government could
Speaker 5: have acted swiftly to get the eminent domain bill signed
Speaker 5: into law, which at best would have complicated things for
Speaker 5: the Colts. At worst, it could have blocked to move,
Speaker 5: forced Robert Essay to sell the club, and kept the
Speaker 5: team languishing in Memorial Stadium.
Speaker 11: The reason for the stealth, the reason for the immediacy,
Speaker 11: was that Baltimore. Now they were going to try to
Speaker 11: block Bob from leaving, and they were going to try
Speaker 11: to block him with the legal concept of eminent domain,
Speaker 11: you know, which essentially says that the community owns the
Speaker 11: franchise and you can't move it. And he, I guess
Speaker 11: felt his legal people felt that maybe they could do that,
Speaker 11: and so he was going to get out of Dodge
Speaker 11: before it got to the you know, to the house
Speaker 11: or whatever. So I mean, I think that was the
Speaker 11: reason for the stealth in the immediacy of it.
Speaker 5: As the hours sticked away and as employees began getting
Speaker 5: ready to go home, not knowing it would be their
Speaker 5: last day of work for the Balti More Colts, Pete
Speaker 5: Ward was summoned to Jim Orsay's office for the second
Speaker 5: time in nineteen eighty four. Ward was told the Colts
Speaker 5: were moving.
Speaker 7: Late in the day. Jim calls me those office and says,
Speaker 7: you know, my dad says, we're moving tonight to Indy.
Speaker 7: Go home, get your personal life in order. I live
Speaker 7: like five minutes away in an apartment. But be back
Speaker 7: here by ten o'clock because all the trucks are going
Speaker 7: to arrive and you need to help bring some sembilance
Speaker 7: of order to the move. So and I had very
Speaker 7: few possessions and not much of a personal life, so
Speaker 7: that part was easy for me.
Speaker 5: One of Ward's first orders make sure everyone who sticks
Speaker 5: around to pack the team up stays safe.
Speaker 7: After the Phoenix thing, I had to hire guard a
Speaker 7: guard company with guard dogs because we were getting death
Speaker 7: threats and bomb threats. We had them on call, and
Speaker 7: right after I was told we're moving, I call them
Speaker 7: up and we had so we had security there.
Speaker 5: Most employees left work that day noticing or thinking anything
Speaker 5: was up. The Colt's facility was two stories, with the
Speaker 5: football side of the team's operation on the first floor
Speaker 5: and the business side on the second floor. But one
Speaker 5: eagle eyed staffer a guy who stayed late after work
Speaker 5: to play racquetball at the facility. Yes, it was a
Speaker 5: facility that had a racquetball court. Notice something strange.
Speaker 12: As he left work, everyone else has to be out
Speaker 12: of the building. And it was a short list, you know,
Speaker 12: and you know who you're waiting for, well Keakowski to
Speaker 12: get out of the building because he was playing racquetball.
Speaker 12: And we're like, because he wasn't on the list to come.
Speaker 7: This one gentleman is a great guy. He's our per director,
Speaker 7: a young man. He's only twenty three years old at
Speaker 7: the time. He's our PR director.
Speaker 15: You know.
Speaker 7: And I went home and he called me at home
Speaker 7: and he said, Pete, something's going on here. I was
Speaker 7: leaving the office and all the coaches cars are here,
Speaker 7: but all their doors are closed. And I said, well,
Speaker 7: the hold on, let me come over there. So I
Speaker 7: went to the office and I met with Walt. I
Speaker 7: went down to see Jim and that's when he told
Speaker 7: me everything. And I said, well, Walt knows something's up.
Speaker 7: And he said, well, send Walt down to me. Walt,
Speaker 7: being a great guy, you know, he took a you know,
Speaker 7: like a man. He said, I understand, and this is
Speaker 7: tough situation. I know, you know, it's not your doing.
Speaker 7: And there's a there's a funny aside to that. And
Speaker 7: that's when Walt and I. When you walked into the
Speaker 7: employee entrance, you walked right into the coach's hallway. And
Speaker 7: as Walt and I walked into the coach's hallway, Rick
Speaker 7: comes out of his office with a with a box.
Speaker 4: Sees what the hell man? You know? That was Rick.
Speaker 7: So Walt went home, and as far as I know,
Speaker 7: he never told anybody. He gave his word to Jim,
Speaker 7: he never told anybody.
Speaker 5: Venturi found out what was going on that evening. He
Speaker 5: stayed past five o'clock, and a few hours later he
Speaker 5: found himself in a conference room with seven other coaches,
Speaker 5: a handful of front office staffers. Pete Ward and Jim
Speaker 5: are saying.
Speaker 11: Jim clears his throat like he always did in those days.
Speaker 11: He always cleared his throat before he delivered. And I'll
Speaker 11: never forget it what he said. He said, Okay, man,
Speaker 11: he goes. The deal has been done. We're moving to
Speaker 11: Indianapolis tonight. The trucks will be here at eleven. We
Speaker 11: will all assist in different deals to help on the move.
Speaker 11: And this will be done with the secrecy of moving
Speaker 11: an embassy in Washington, d C. Don't tell your wives,
Speaker 11: don't tell your girlfriends. We want this thing totally, absolutely quiet.
Speaker 11: I remember calling Miss Sherry and saying, Cherry, I think
Speaker 11: I'm going to be really late tonight, and she said, well,
Speaker 11: how late, I said, I'm like I'd be hung at all.
Speaker 5: Everybody left in the building had a specific job. Venturre's
Speaker 5: was to take down all the blackboards and whiteboards in
Speaker 5: the complex. He grabbed a screwdriver and he went to work. Everything,
Speaker 5: and I mean everything had to be taken off the
Speaker 5: walls and thrown into boxes. Time was of the essence.
Speaker 5: Anything that didn't make it out of the Mayflower moving trucks,
Speaker 5: which were a few hours from rolling into the team facility,
Speaker 5: might not make it to Indianapolis. Anything left behind could
Speaker 5: be caught in legal limbo the moment Baltimore claimed emminent
Speaker 5: domaine over the Colts, so everything that was essential to
Speaker 5: the operation of a football team had to be on
Speaker 5: its way to Indianapolis in just a few hours. Back
Speaker 5: in Indianapolis, the work folks like David Frick had done
Speaker 5: prior to March twenty eighth paid off the city of
Speaker 5: Indianapolis and the Colts are on the same page for
Speaker 5: the terms of a deal to relocate. The Colts guaranteed
Speaker 5: attendants a favorable loan, a new training facility, stuff like that.
Speaker 5: Mayor Bill Hudnutt had already secured moving vans through Mayflower,
Speaker 5: whose CEO happened to be his next door neighbor. Mayflower
Speaker 5: had a convoy of eleven moving vans ready to head
Speaker 5: to east down Interstate seventy to go get the Colts.
Speaker 5: So when Robert ur Say called Hudnut at eleven o'clock
Speaker 5: in the morning on Wednesday, March twenty eighth to tell
Speaker 5: him were coming to Indianapolis, the city was not just ready,
Speaker 5: they were ready right now. Indianapolis didn't build the Hoosier
Speaker 5: Dome so they could secure a team overnight. They built
Speaker 5: it thinking the NFL would expand to their city sometime
Speaker 5: in the nineteen eighties. But because they had already had
Speaker 5: a brand new sixty thousand seat dome stadium with skyboxes
Speaker 5: and luxury amenities, Indianapolis was uniquely ready to welcome the
Speaker 5: Colts whenever they were ready to move. Hudnut's risky, no guts,
Speaker 5: no glory play for an NFL franchise was about to
Speaker 5: pay off. As the sunset on March twenty eighth, nineteen
Speaker 5: eighty four, all that had to happen was getting those
Speaker 5: Mayflower trucks loaded up in Baltimore and on the road
Speaker 5: to Indianapolis before the city of Baltimore could claim eminent
Speaker 5: domain over the Colts. Easy right.
Speaker 7: And right at ten o'clock, all the trucks arrived and
Speaker 7: they're coming in. It's dark. We're kind of in a
Speaker 7: rural area and they have their lights out, and they're
Speaker 7: all Mayflower vands and a bus comes in.
Speaker 5: This is how spooked the Colts were at the wrong people.
Speaker 5: Getting wind of what was happening, churn Off scrapped hudnuts
Speaker 5: plan of a convoy of Mayflower trucks and asked him
Speaker 5: to have the moving company dispatched trucks from a handful
Speaker 5: of East Coast depots. The drivers were to arrive at
Speaker 5: the Colts complex in Owen's Mills after nightfall, but they
Speaker 5: were not to be told their destination until it was
Speaker 5: absolutely necessary.
Speaker 12: So finally it was time, and I swear I remember
Speaker 12: standing outside waiting for the trucks, and it was dark,
Speaker 12: and it was snowing, And when that first truck, when
Speaker 12: the first gear in Owen smells back then you had
Speaker 12: to climb a big hill to get to our parking
Speaker 12: lot and the complex, and I said, my god, the
Speaker 12: whole state of Maryland could hear that.
Speaker 5: Hudnutt earlier in the day had called Mayflower CEO John B.
Speaker 5: Smith at about eleven forty five am, and he told
Speaker 5: him send the trucks Meanwhile, the folks who were swiftly
Speaker 5: packing up boxes needed some help getting those boxes onto
Speaker 5: the waiting moving trucks. That's when a bus showed up,
Speaker 5: filled with college students from the University of Maryland, who
Speaker 5: were usually tasked with moving foreign diplomats and dignitaries around
Speaker 5: the Washington, d C.
Speaker 9: Region.
Speaker 7: And I hopped on the bus and it's all the packers,
Speaker 7: you know, And the guy in front says, hey, man,
Speaker 7: is this an embassy. You know, because the embassy's move
Speaker 7: at night.
Speaker 5: It didn't take long for those college kids on the
Speaker 5: bus to realize what they were doing and how they
Speaker 5: might be able to take a little advantage of the situation.
Speaker 6: So the trucks are pulling up.
Speaker 14: Then a bus pull up and it's all these workers
Speaker 14: hired that night or the day before to come in.
Speaker 14: And then they started taking a lot of the boxes
Speaker 14: that I had going on the Mayflower trucks. So I'm
Speaker 14: I'm kind of watching these guys. And then about a
Speaker 14: hour later I noticed watching these guys and they had
Speaker 14: coats on. It was a rainy, snowy night, and underneath
Speaker 14: their jackets was as if I could see Baltimore across here.
Speaker 14: But I had heard earlier that these guys came from Washington,
Speaker 14: d C. And I'm thinking to myself, Wait, these guys.
Speaker 6: Are redskin fans.
Speaker 14: Why did they have you know where I'm going with this.
Speaker 14: They would go in the back parts of these rooms,
Speaker 14: put on a jersey, put on a Colt's shirt or whatever,
Speaker 14: put their jacket back on, and then walk out.
Speaker 6: And then they were ripping us off, you know.
Speaker 14: And these guys were gaining weight.
Speaker 6: Look like he was one hundred and ninety five now
Speaker 6: he's two forty. You know, he's like a Michelin man.
Speaker 7: Yeah, they're stealing stuff right and left. It was mass chaos.
Speaker 14: So I got with the guy in charge. I said, hey,
Speaker 14: you know something's going on here. You know, whatever it is,
Speaker 14: you need to get with those people. You know, it's okay,
Speaker 14: I get, I get, give me fifteen minutes. So went
Speaker 14: back in the locker room.
Speaker 6: There's a mountainous stuff.
Speaker 14: There's football's jerseys at all in this big pile. You know,
Speaker 14: these guys had taken from I'm sure they got off
Speaker 14: with something.
Speaker 5: The scene at the Colts facility was utterly chaos. How
Speaker 5: could it be anything but a handful of people were
Speaker 5: trying to move an NFL team as fast as they could.
Speaker 5: Organization was not at a premium.
Speaker 7: It wasn't like, Okay, I's to this office in this office,
Speaker 7: so I couldn't be everywhere to label box and it
Speaker 7: was just mass chaos. And so that's how things end
Speaker 7: up being packed and shipped. And when we got to Indianapolis,
Speaker 7: there's just a big pile of boxes and desks, and
Speaker 7: you know, we new Bank's hat and the footballs and everything.
Speaker 5: As snow and darkness fell in Owings Mills, that sleepy,
Speaker 5: somewhat rural Baltimore suburb, the move was going according to plan,
Speaker 5: at least as planned out as moving an NFL team
Speaker 5: with a few hours notice could be. Nobody outside the
Speaker 5: building had let it slip that the team was about
Speaker 5: to skip town. But at some point in the night
Speaker 5: Ward had to call up the Colts football video guy.
Speaker 5: All the video equipment in the building actually belonged to
Speaker 5: the video director, not the team.
Speaker 7: Now, our video director at the time was a native
Speaker 7: Baltimorean and he owned our video equipment. So we had
Speaker 7: to call him in to come get his equipment. And
Speaker 7: he was a long time, I mean all the way
Speaker 7: back to the fifties, you know, and he was the
Speaker 7: one who had up calling local radio station. That's what
Speaker 7: broke it, you know, about midnight.
Speaker 5: Word was out. Shortly after the news broke over the
Speaker 5: radio airwaves. The pitch black, snowy darkness outside the Colts
Speaker 5: complex was broken by the glowing lights of TV trucks.
Speaker 5: News crews were quickly dispatched to Owings Mills.
Speaker 9: That was before cell phones and everything else.
Speaker 5: Jane Miller, the longtime Baltimore news reporter, was quickly sent
Speaker 5: to Owings Mills to report that night.
Speaker 9: You know, clearly word got out that they were moving.
Speaker 13: So I hustled out there. And it's in Owings Mills,
Speaker 13: which is about it's a suburb of Baltimore City. It's
Speaker 13: probably about twenty five to thirty minutes outside the city.
Speaker 13: It was the nasty night.
Speaker 15: It was dreary weather.
Speaker 13: It was like a wet snow that was falling by
Speaker 13: the time the sun came up.
Speaker 5: John Zeeman, the leader of the Cult Marching Band, worked
Speaker 5: at a local TV station in Baltimore. He and his
Speaker 5: wife Charlene, who was also involved in the Colt Band,
Speaker 5: were out that night doing auditions for the nineteen eighty
Speaker 5: four season.
Speaker 16: At the time, I worked for WMRTV in Baltimore and
Speaker 16: studio operations, and the night they moved, I was auditioning
Speaker 16: new drummers because at the time I was also in
Speaker 16: charge of percussion line, the drum line. My wife Charlene
Speaker 16: was auditioning new flag line for some reason, I don't
Speaker 16: know why. We didn't turn a radio on. Gone home
Speaker 16: and I got home. My son Christopher was forlorn. Patrick
Speaker 16: was just born. Here's a month old movie two.
Speaker 2: And the babysitter just looked at me coming in.
Speaker 16: I thought something happened to one of the boys, and
Speaker 16: she just pointed to the TV in a saumet flower
Speaker 16: and I saw the name Bottom calls inside the building,
Speaker 16: and then it was Hoover.
Speaker 5: Zeeman was dispatched to Owings Mills to help with wmr's
Speaker 5: coverage of the night. He was one of the few
Speaker 5: people around Baltimore who, for years truly believed the Colts
Speaker 5: were destined to move, But as he watched those green
Speaker 5: moving vans get loaded up, the emotions he felt were
Speaker 5: difficult to process. Zeeman was a true cult fan, someone
Speaker 5: who was intimately involved with the team, and someone whose
Speaker 5: civic pride swelled when he played the Colt fight song
Speaker 5: before games, and even if he thought this day would come,
Speaker 5: watching it unfold in person was as heartbreaking as it
Speaker 5: was surreal.
Speaker 16: I had to take a light kid and go out
Speaker 16: to the bottom of Calls Complex with the reporter Susan
Speaker 16: White Bowden and stand out there all night in the
Speaker 16: snow and freezing rain.
Speaker 2: And watch the Mayflower movie bands leave.
Speaker 16: And it was hard on me as a citizen in
Speaker 16: a kind of bottom of Colts fan, but even harder
Speaker 16: on me as something invested in that team, and that
Speaker 16: a lot of times I didn't think this is real.
Speaker 5: My dreaming inside the facility, the frenetic work getting things
Speaker 5: loaded up was starting to wind down. Some of the
Speaker 5: trucks began leaving in the wee hours of the morning.
Speaker 11: I would say two thirty three am somewhere in there.
Speaker 11: You know, it escapes me a little bit. But then
Speaker 11: Jim called us all together and he said, okay, our
Speaker 11: part of it is done. You know, we want you
Speaker 11: guys to go on home. He said, we will then
Speaker 11: all fly out on my dad's plane and we will
Speaker 11: leave from Dallas Airport. And he gave us a time
Speaker 11: and obviously we couldn't leave from Maryland. I mean that
Speaker 11: way to lab to get killed.
Speaker 5: But leaving the now Baron Colts Complex was not going
Speaker 5: to be the easiest thing for anyone there. The presence
Speaker 5: of news crews complicated things. The employees who were left
Speaker 5: in the facility would ultimately have to leave and get
Speaker 5: past those crews waiting outside. For one employee, that was
Speaker 5: an especially problematic situation, jim Irsay, who was the son
Speaker 5: of owner Robert Ursay. While Jimmy, as he was known
Speaker 5: to Baltimore locals, was largely well liked and respected in
Speaker 5: the area, there were threats against him and his family.
Speaker 14: He said, just to let you know, you and I
Speaker 14: are flying to Indianapolis in a couple of hours.
Speaker 6: And I think, okay, all right. He goes, we got
Speaker 6: to get some sleep. Are you almost done here? I
Speaker 6: said yeah. He goes, I can't.
Speaker 7: I can't go.
Speaker 14: Home because there's been death threats on my family everything else.
Speaker 7: I said, well, wait a minute, just go to my apartment.
Speaker 14: He goes, yeah, but you gonna have to sneak me
Speaker 14: out of here.
Speaker 7: I said, well, okay, we can do that.
Speaker 6: So we went in my car. I'm driving Gym's in
Speaker 6: the passenger side. I have this big blank in the
Speaker 6: bat I throw it over him. Now as we're going out, of.
Speaker 14: Course, there's a lot of news people and they got
Speaker 14: their cameras and everything, and I'm pulling up.
Speaker 6: You know, they're stopping me and taking pictures. I rolled down.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't I say, hey, can I help you? Oh
Speaker 6: that's John said equipment. Yeah, come on through, you know.
Speaker 14: So I went there and Gin's hiding underneath it.
Speaker 5: As dawn broke on Thursday, March twenty ninth, some employees,
Speaker 5: those ones who left the day before at five pm,
Speaker 5: trekked through the snow and slush to the Colts complex.
Speaker 5: A handful of longtime fans showed up to see the
Speaker 5: sight of team leaving Baltimore for themselves. The mood among
Speaker 5: the folks outside the gate are people watching things unfold
Speaker 5: on the morning news? Are Colts fans? In general? Was
Speaker 5: a mix of the five stages of grief. There was denial.
Speaker 8: I was doing an internship at a TV station and
Speaker 8: it came across the ap wire story.
Speaker 5: Jerry Sandusky is a Baltimore native who's now the voice
Speaker 5: of the Baltimore Ravens.
Speaker 8: That the Colts had moved, and I read it a
Speaker 8: couple times before I could digest it, because it was
Speaker 8: like saying, you know what, Christmas no longer exists. There's
Speaker 8: now only seven months in the year. It was like
Speaker 8: all these impossible thoughts that hit you all at once.
Speaker 3: There was anger when you have to sneak out in
Speaker 3: the middle of the night.
Speaker 12: Don't inform your invested employees of your intentions. I don't
Speaker 12: want to work for people like that.
Speaker 5: There was bargaining.
Speaker 6: You never forget the Colts.
Speaker 16: Are you going to go on wearing that hat?
Speaker 10: Absolutely, we're still going down our convention June notion City
Speaker 10: to corrals. We're not gonna stop just because the team's gone.
Speaker 10: The band didn't stop in fifty and fifth be won,
Speaker 10: so why should we stop. We'll be here when the
Speaker 10: new Colts come in.
Speaker 5: There was depression.
Speaker 17: I saw my father cry twice in his life. My
Speaker 17: father was born in nineteen nineteen. He died in ninety two.
Speaker 17: I saw him cry when his sister died, and I
Speaker 17: saw him cry when the Colts left town.
Speaker 5: And there was acceptance.
Speaker 16: The last person out, the very last person that was
Speaker 16: gentleman by the name of Walter Ktawski, Walter was a
Speaker 16: p architector.
Speaker 2: And he came out and I'm.
Speaker 16: Paraphrase and said, guys don't stand after a cold.
Speaker 2: They're gone. And he closed to get and that was it.
Speaker 5: Whoever you believe was to blame for the colts overnight move,
Speaker 5: whether that's Robert or say the state legislator eminent Domaine, whoever, whatever,
Speaker 5: the impact on scores of people was profound. They hadn't
Speaker 5: just lost their team. They went to bed on March
Speaker 5: twenty eighth as Baltimore Colts fans. They woke up on
Speaker 5: March twenty ninth without a team, without a piece of
Speaker 5: their identity, and without a part of their city. And
Speaker 5: the speed with which that happened, which with they had
Speaker 5: a part of their identity ripped out of them. That
Speaker 5: is a big part of why the hurt still lingers
Speaker 5: in some people in Baltimore. John Scott began packing up
Speaker 5: the Colts equipment room around four am on March twenty eighth.
Speaker 5: Coaches in front office staffers joined the efforts around six pm,
Speaker 5: and within twenty four hours, the Baltimore Colts were gone.
Speaker 11: I mean here was unbelievable. You know what in twenty
Speaker 11: four hours in other words. When that complex in Baltimore closed,
Speaker 11: let's say at five o'clock, it was a fully functioning
Speaker 11: complex as you would know today, equipment rooms, everything.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 11: By four in the morning or five in the morning,
Speaker 11: it looked like an empty airplane hangar.
Speaker 5: Maybe the Colts are going to move anyway. They almost
Speaker 5: left for Phoenix two months prior, and Indianapolis put together
Speaker 5: a strong bid to land the team. They met every
Speaker 5: one of Robert Ursay's requests while opening the Hoosier Dome
Speaker 5: with its sixty thousand serendipitously colored blue and white seats.
Speaker 5: But when the Maryland State Senate overwhelmingly approved eminent domain legislation,
Speaker 5: signaling it was a matter of when, not if the
Speaker 5: city of Baltimore could try to seize the Colts, it
Speaker 5: forced the team's hand. Sure, the courts could have got involved,
Speaker 5: and maybe the city wouldn't have been successful, but any
Speaker 5: ongoing litigation could have at the very least complicated things
Speaker 5: for the Colts as they looked for their exit from
Speaker 5: Memorial Stadium. The Colts had a good option awaiting them
Speaker 5: in Indianapolis. Why wait around and see what could have
Speaker 5: happened at Baltimore?
Speaker 7: Not necessarily eminent domain, because that was that was a reach.
Speaker 7: That was what spurred the move to be that night.
Speaker 7: But a judge could have temporarily issued a stay and
Speaker 7: so and actually we had stuff that was still there
Speaker 7: for another year and a half because he was able
Speaker 7: to sign an order first thing in the morning that
Speaker 7: we had and yeah yet shipped. So we had is
Speaker 7: that we're in Baltimore for another eighteen months or so.
Speaker 5: The morning of March twenty ninth, the Maryland Assembly quickly
Speaker 5: moved the eminent domain bill through committee and then to
Speaker 5: its floor, where it easily passed. By noon, Maryland Governor
Speaker 5: Harry Hughes signed it into law, saying, according to the
Speaker 5: Baltimore Sun, quote, I don't like having to do something
Speaker 5: like this, but extraordinary circumstances made it necessary. The Colts
Speaker 5: are an integral part of the Baltimore community and the
Speaker 5: Maryland community. If this is necessary to assure that the
Speaker 5: city can make the last ditch effort to keep the
Speaker 5: team here, then we have to do it. But folks
Speaker 5: in Baltimore and officials in Maryland had plenty of chances
Speaker 5: to keep the Colts in the years leading up to
Speaker 5: nineteen eighty four, Memorial Stadium had been a problem for
Speaker 5: a decade and a half, dating back to Carol Rosenbloom's
Speaker 5: days as the Colts owner. Government officials responded by shutting
Speaker 5: down a plan to build a dome stadium to house
Speaker 5: the Colts in the Orioles, and then by putting a
Speaker 5: referendum on the ballot that eliminated any chance of building
Speaker 5: a new stateum in Baltimore. Fan support was dwindling, falling
Speaker 5: hard from the sellout streak in the nineteen sixties to
Speaker 5: under thirty thousand fans for some games in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 5: Mayor William Donald Shaeffer did everything he could within those
Speaker 5: boundaries to keep the Colts, but he was not able
Speaker 5: to do the thing that could have kept the Colts
Speaker 5: in Baltimore, and that's build a new stadium.
Speaker 17: It's one of life's lessons, right. I don't know what
Speaker 17: else to say.
Speaker 5: Nestor Eppertio is a long time Baltimore radio host.
Speaker 17: If there's not enough money, the business closes and you
Speaker 17: don't get to eat the ring dings you love there anymore,
Speaker 17: right Like, if enough people don't support it.
Speaker 5: But the narrative in Baltimore quickly and strongly became as mayor.
Speaker 5: William Donald Schaeffer told TV news stations outside his home
Speaker 5: on the morning of the twenty ninth that the Colts
Speaker 5: had to sneak out of town. The narrative was that
Speaker 5: Robert Arsay did something despicable and dishonorable over.
Speaker 2: Nine the team moved. That's classless.
Speaker 5: To this day, Robert Arsay is still hated by baltimoreans
Speaker 5: old enough to remember March twenty eighth, nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 5: or because of how that night played out, But the
Speaker 5: way his son observed it, a few things were true.
Speaker 5: Robert Arsay didn't really want to move the Colts, but
Speaker 5: he needed a new stadium, and the state of Maryland
Speaker 5: pulling the ripcord on eminent domain was the reason why
Speaker 5: Robert Arsay had to get the hell out of Baltimore overnight.
Speaker 12: I would just tell anyone who wants to vilify my
Speaker 12: dad about moving the team is totally wrong. I would say,
Speaker 12: if it's right, look at when my dad's wrong, I'll
Speaker 12: tell you he was wrong. When he's right, I'll tell
Speaker 12: you he was right. And that's just the way I
Speaker 12: am with myself or anyone else. I mean, I'm not gonna.
Speaker 12: You know, the truth is is that there was no
Speaker 12: question he was forced to move. Indy just did something
Speaker 12: which is unheard of, is they built a new stadium
Speaker 12: and back then a dome stadium, which they are very
Speaker 12: few of, and they didn't have a team, you know.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's like what Indianapolis's government officials and business
Speaker 5: community meanwhile put their reputations on the line to construct
Speaker 5: the Hoosier Done. They're bold actions. Building a sixty thousand
Speaker 5: seat stadium without an NFL tenant set the city up
Speaker 5: to welcome the Colts with open arms on March twenty ninth,
Speaker 5: nineteen eighty four. Hud Nuts maneuvering to build the stadium
Speaker 5: wasn't universally well received until it paid off.
Speaker 18: So as a journalist, it's kind of showed me, you know, really,
Speaker 18: you know, are you really I mean this feeding this
Speaker 18: bs here or in this dream land of how things
Speaker 18: are everything? You know, So you do have that attitude
Speaker 18: early on.
Speaker 5: Debbie Knox began a long career as a reporter for
Speaker 5: WISH TV in nineteen.
Speaker 15: Eighty But when those vans loaded up Baltimore Colts, you
Speaker 15: know and all their you know, stuff that they had
Speaker 15: in vans and they're traveling in anatolasy Bob brsdayes in
Speaker 15: the city.
Speaker 18: That's when it really became real.
Speaker 5: So beginning on March twenty ninth, nineteen eighty four, the
Speaker 5: Baltimore Colts were now the Indianapolis Colts. They did it.
Speaker 5: The team moved.
Speaker 7: Now what didn't really know where to be. We didn't
Speaker 7: have you know, we didn't have phones. We didn't have
Speaker 7: any boy the answer phones. We didn't have stationary, We
Speaker 7: didn't know what our address was. We didn't have a copier,
Speaker 7: you know, all that stuff.
Speaker 4: It was just like more how.
Speaker 7: Starting a franchise from scratch, except that you had your
Speaker 7: players and your coaches of the contract.
Speaker 5: The story of what came next after the Colts arrived
Speaker 5: in Indianapolis and how on remarkably short notice an NFL
Speaker 5: team got off the ground in a new city with
Speaker 5: just over five months before the season started is on
Speaker 5: the next and final episode of The Move Aftermath.
Speaker 14: Well, now we're going to take you to the complex.
Speaker 6: I think you great.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I hope it's as nice as the one in Baltimore.
Speaker 14: And we pull up to Fall Creek Elementary School. Yes,
Speaker 14: why are we here?
Speaker 19: March twenty nine to eighty four, the Colts arrived in Indy.
Speaker 19: I still remember thinking, wow, that's kind of late, you know,
Speaker 19: in the in the ticketing process to move, and I thought, wow,
Speaker 19: that's going to be pretty tough for someone over there
Speaker 19: in Indy.
Speaker 9: Little did I know there was going to.
Speaker 20: Be meet like the talking has sound life during wartime,
Speaker 20: you know that gunfire and the distance time getting used
Speaker 20: to it. Now, you know, it's so absurd that no
Speaker 20: one would possibly you just could not believe.
Speaker 2: What was going on that first year.
Speaker 12: I mean, it's just it's unbelievable.
Speaker 7: There was a learning curve to becoming a crowd.
Speaker 21: I think what was evident once the season started it
Speaker 21: was a basketball state with a tremendous heritage because whenever
Speaker 21: the offense got in the field, they were cheering. So
Speaker 21: we come ahead and kind of hold our hands down,
Speaker 21: like no, no, no, we're cheer when they're on defis.
Speaker 17: I was angry about it for so long, bro. I
Speaker 17: lan ended at your airport and I went in passed
Speaker 17: the Kolachi stand and into Center City for years and
Speaker 17: would see that Colt shop in the mall. It would
Speaker 17: piss me off.
Speaker 22: The story of the nineteen eighty four season, and the
Speaker 22: fallout of the Colts Move, both in Indianapolis and in Baltimore,
Speaker 22: will be told on episode four of The Move. The
Speaker 22: episode will be released on July fifteenth. Subscribe to the
Speaker 22: Colts Audio Network on your podcast platform of choice to
Speaker 22: download episodes one and two of The Move, which tell
Speaker 22: the story of Baltimore and Indianapolis before the Colts moved.
Speaker 22: Episode three of The Move was written and narrated by
Speaker 22: JJ Stankowitz and produced by Casey Valiant. Amber Daro, Dave Knickerbocker,
Speaker 22: and Matt Taylor contributed with research and editing.
Speaker 7: Se