Speaker 1: It's April second, nineteen eighty four. Twenty thousand people are
Speaker 1: in the stands at the Hoosier Dome, which was four
Speaker 1: times the expected attendants, to celebrate the arrival of the
Speaker 1: Colts to Indianapolis, just four days after the Mayflower vans
Speaker 1: rolled into town from Baltimore. Indianapolis Mayor Bill HUDNUTT triumphantly
Speaker 1: walks out of a tunnel onto the green astro turf
Speaker 1: at the Hoosier Dome. Next to him as Robert ur say,
Speaker 1: it's a striking sight. Hudnut waves to the crowd, grinning
Speaker 1: ear to ear. Then with his left hand he grabs
Speaker 1: Robert Ursay's right hand and he lifts it up in
Speaker 1: the air. The two men walk into the Hoosier Dome,
Speaker 1: hands held high. As Hudnut makes his way to a
Speaker 1: stage on the field, he finds the hand of Deputy
Speaker 1: Mayor David Frick, the man most responsible for nailing down
Speaker 1: the city's deal to land the Colts, and he hoists
Speaker 1: Frick's hand in the air too. Hudnut does not stop smiling.
Speaker 1: He knows the gravity the moment. He is the mayor
Speaker 1: who brought the NFL to Indianapolis. Finally, the dignitaries of
Speaker 1: the day reach a stage on the field. Frick strides
Speaker 1: to a brown podium with two things on it, white
Speaker 1: letters spelling out Indiana Convention Center. Who's your dome? Beneath
Speaker 1: it the NFL shield. Frick is the MC of the day.
Speaker 2: Good morning, what a great day for NABLAS.
Speaker 1: Over about thirty minutes, Indiana's business and government dignitaries take
Speaker 1: turns at the podium, drawing raucous cheers from the crowd
Speaker 1: for their role in bringing the NFL to Indianapolis. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Colts head coach Frank Kush, the hard ass hired from
Speaker 1: Arizona State who wouldn't be coaching in Phoenix that fall,
Speaker 1: takes the mic.
Speaker 3: The next group.
Speaker 4: I likes that.
Speaker 2: I introduces what I would call.
Speaker 3: Mayflower midnight Woovers. We have a couple of young kids here.
Speaker 3: They just got their honorary degree from IU. I think
Speaker 3: they're about sixteen or seventeen year old. They're geniuses. Pete
Speaker 3: Ward that handles our administrative assistant we have on the
Speaker 3: football team and the coaches in a personnelity apartment.
Speaker 5: We want to thank you.
Speaker 3: We are going to give it the best effort to
Speaker 3: produce a winning football team here and make you proud
Speaker 3: of the Indianapolis Colts.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Eventually, Mayor Bill Hudnutt and Colts owner Robert Orsay, the
Speaker 1: guests of honor take the podium. Mayor Hudnut gets a
Speaker 1: standing ovation and the grin he's had splashed across his
Speaker 1: face it hasn't faded.
Speaker 2: This is a great day for the city of Indianapolis.
Speaker 2: And I can't tell you how proud I am to
Speaker 2: welcome Barbers and the Indianapolis called to this magnificent facility
Speaker 2: with these blue.
Speaker 6: And white seats.
Speaker 1: Hudnut gives out keys to the city to several people,
Speaker 1: include Jim Orsay, Michael Chernoff, and Frank Cush from the Colts,
Speaker 1: and then he introduces the owner of Indianapolis's pro football team.
Speaker 2: Now the moment we've all been waiting for the opportunity
Speaker 2: to introduce to you the owner of the Indianapolis Colts.
Speaker 2: I'm going to read a proclamation and then he's going
Speaker 2: to have the floor and I'm gonna give him a
Speaker 2: key to the city as well as a proclamation, because
Speaker 2: this is one of the greatest days in the history
Speaker 2: of this city. Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: After Huddnut proclaims April second, nineteen eighty four, is Indianapolis.
Speaker 1: Colts stay in Indianapolis. He welcomes Robert or Say to
Speaker 1: the stage. They raise their hands in the air one
Speaker 1: more time, and then Robert or Say begins speaking to
Speaker 1: twenty thousand of his newest fans.
Speaker 7: Thank you very much, needless of saying, I'm very glad
Speaker 7: to be here. We did go through several mons. Wasn't
Speaker 7: easy that we did talk to other people. I just
Speaker 7: I'll give you a little review what happened, and it
Speaker 7: won't take too much time of years. But we did
Speaker 7: talk to several other cities. We did choose in Annapolis.
Speaker 7: Your negotiator, mister Frickett, and your mayor didn't give anything away.
Speaker 7: We had better offers. I did choose in Indianapolis. I'm
Speaker 7: a Midwestern to start with. Second of all, I think
Speaker 7: the treatment and negotiations were more than fairer with this
Speaker 7: city than any others I negotiated with. So I think
Speaker 7: you could put this on a burner. This negotiation with
Speaker 7: in Annapolis was not really all for dollars. But we're
Speaker 7: very happy to be here. We're pleased at your Dome Stadium.
Speaker 7: We're pleased at the arrangements. We maighed with your city,
Speaker 7: and we just hope that our team will back you
Speaker 7: up and take you to the spot you belongs as
Speaker 7: a pro team in Innneapolis and NFL.
Speaker 8: Thank you.
Speaker 1: But the pomp and circumstance of the moment and the
Speaker 1: joyous looks on the faces of those at the Hoosier
Speaker 1: Dome that day were only a brief respite for a
Speaker 1: franchise that in many ways was completely starting over just
Speaker 1: five months before the nineteen eighty four season was set
Speaker 1: to begin. Pete Ward, now the Colts chief operating officer,
Speaker 1: was an administrative assistant when the team moved in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four.
Speaker 9: We didn't really know where to be. We didn't have phones,
Speaker 9: we didn't have anybody the answer phones. We didn't have stationary,
Speaker 9: we didn't know what our address was. We didn't have
Speaker 9: a copyer in. It was just started a while, starting
Speaker 9: a franchise from scratch, except that you had your players
Speaker 9: and your coaches under contract.
Speaker 1: So how did the Colts go about the gargantuan task
Speaker 1: of getting their first season in Indianapolis off the ground
Speaker 1: and back in Baltimore? What was the fallout in a
Speaker 1: region rocked by the midnight departure of their football team.
Speaker 10: Like the talking has some life during wartime and you
Speaker 10: know that gunfire and the distance of time getting.
Speaker 1: Used to it now Jimmersay, the owner and CEO of
Speaker 1: the Indianapolis Colts.
Speaker 10: Is just like so absurd that no one would possibly
Speaker 10: you just could not believe what was going on in
Speaker 10: that first year.
Speaker 4: I mean, it just it.
Speaker 10: Was just unbelievable.
Speaker 1: This is episode four of The Move Aftermath. The goal
Speaker 1: for as Cush called them, the Mayflower Midnight Movers on
Speaker 1: March twenty eighth, nineteen eighty four, was not organization. The
Speaker 1: goal was speed. It didn't matter how boxes were packed
Speaker 1: or how the trucks were loaded up. It just mattered
Speaker 1: that the boxes were packed and the trucks were loaded
Speaker 1: up before the State of Maryland could authorize the City
Speaker 1: of Baltimore to try to seize the Colts through eminent domain.
Speaker 1: And that left an absolute mess to sort through after
Speaker 1: the trucks arrived at Fall Creek Elementary School on the
Speaker 1: east side of Indianapolis. Remember what Pete Ward said in
Speaker 1: episode three about how the Owings Mills facility was packed up.
Speaker 9: It wasn't like, Okay, i's suit this office in this office,
Speaker 9: so I couldn't be everywhere to label box it. It
Speaker 9: was just mass chaos, and so that's how things ended
Speaker 9: up being packed and shipped. And when we got to Indianapolis,
Speaker 9: there was just a big pile of boxes and desks.
Speaker 9: You know, we new Bank's hat and the footballs and everything.
Speaker 1: Ward, who was then a twenty something you described himself
Speaker 1: as quote cheap labor, found a mattress. He stashed it
Speaker 1: at Fall Creek Elementary School and he went to work
Speaker 1: both exhausted and energized at the same time.
Speaker 9: You know what it was, So he had so much
Speaker 9: adrenaline because you were so excited, because the city was excited.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 9: It just was such a different feeling than Baltimore. So
Speaker 9: you're excited, but you're also just overwhelmed and mentally exhausted
Speaker 9: because there's so many first yet hardly had any sleep,
Speaker 9: and there's so much to do.
Speaker 1: It took about a week of nearly round the clock
Speaker 1: work for the Colts to get set up at their
Speaker 1: new facility, which again was an abandoned elementary school, and
Speaker 1: so an NFL team which provided some of the highest
Speaker 1: paying jobs to some of the largest men in our country,
Speaker 1: was about to set up shop in really an elementary school.
Speaker 4: No one could.
Speaker 10: Possibly believe it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 10: It's like we're using this grade school sports field which
Speaker 10: was barely big enough for a football field, and we
Speaker 10: got to get this field ready in four weeks, you know,
Speaker 10: for mini camp.
Speaker 1: While Indianapolis's movers and shakers, led by Mayor Bill Hudnutt,
Speaker 1: had stuck their collective necks out to build the sparkly
Speaker 1: new Hoosier Dome, the city had not also built a
Speaker 1: practice facility for an NFL team. That would come later
Speaker 1: once a team arrived back in Maryland. Though the Colts
Speaker 1: complex in Owings Mills was state of the art, in Indianapol,
Speaker 1: the Colts would have to set up where children used
Speaker 1: to learn about states and art.
Speaker 6: When we landed, they kind of buttered us up. They
Speaker 6: took us to the brand new Hoosier Dome.
Speaker 1: John Scott was the Colt's equipment manager in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 6: And wow was that cool. I mean, especially for an
Speaker 6: equipment guy.
Speaker 11: All our home.
Speaker 6: Games are in no rain, no infield, in dirt or whatever.
Speaker 6: So we saw that and it was great and even
Speaker 6: the seats were blue and white, you know, like it
Speaker 6: was made for us. So now we're going to take
Speaker 6: you to the complex. I'm thinking, great, I hope it's
Speaker 6: as nice as the one in Baltimore. And we pull
Speaker 6: up to Fall Creek Elementary School. Yes, I why are
Speaker 6: we here?
Speaker 1: A new complex for the Colts on the west side
Speaker 1: of Indianapolis, which is where the team still practices to
Speaker 1: this day, was under construction and expected to be completed
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five. Fall Creek Elementary School was a
Speaker 1: temporary solution. The most important thing to both parties, the
Speaker 1: city of Indianapolis and the Colts, was that, well the
Speaker 1: culture in Indianapolis.
Speaker 6: You know, you go inside these rooms that's going to
Speaker 6: be for the offensive linemen, and you walk in there
Speaker 6: and there's little tiny seats because it was the first
Speaker 6: grade room. You know, I said, well those are gott
Speaker 6: to go. You know. There was a lot of had
Speaker 6: living I gues whatever the word is, just to try
Speaker 6: to figure out how are we going to make this
Speaker 6: work for an NFL you know, team to be in
Speaker 6: an elementary school.
Speaker 1: Fall Creek Elementary was indeed retrofitted to house an NFL team.
Speaker 1: Showers were put in not for four foot tall kids,
Speaker 1: but for six foot tall adults. Coaches and front office
Speaker 1: staffers were assigned to classrooms and where kids were once
Speaker 1: taught multiplication was now where pro football players would be
Speaker 1: taught how to defend Dan Marino. Jim Rsay, then the
Speaker 1: team's general manager, set up his office in the school library.
Speaker 1: The cafeteria was divided into becoming the locker room, training room,
Speaker 1: and equipment room. Half of the gymnasium came the weight room.
Speaker 10: We put a dividing wall on their old basketball court
Speaker 10: and half was going to be the weight room. And
Speaker 10: I remember I was there late one night. Like I said,
Speaker 10: there was this wall dividing the basketball court, and then
Speaker 10: there was the weight room, which wasn't much of a
Speaker 10: weight room, but you know, we had no security, We
Speaker 10: had NOMI, and so all of a sudden, you know,
Speaker 10: it's nighttime and I'm working. And as we were working,
Speaker 10: you know, sixteen hour days, I hear this. I walk
Speaker 10: into the opposite half of the basketball car and I
Speaker 10: hear this, like on the floor. You know, I'm like,
Speaker 10: what is there is someone in here to rip his off?
Speaker 10: I mean I don't know. Of course, no cell phones,
Speaker 10: but you know, what the hell am I going to do?
Speaker 10: And so you know, I'm meekly peeking around the corner
Speaker 10: of the wall and Bob Turpin he's in there, the
Speaker 10: handful of two handfuls of them, and m's.
Speaker 4: Going like.
Speaker 1: Outside. An AstroTurf field was installed, but only seventy yards
Speaker 1: could fit on the property and there were no end zones.
Speaker 12: They put a makeshift astro turf field down and as
Speaker 12: we got into the season. I'll never forget this.
Speaker 1: Matt Bozo was a wide receiver on the Colts in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 12: It was raining like it can rain, and you know,
Speaker 12: in the fall, early fall, and that field we went
Speaker 12: out and the AstroTurf field was floating. It was like
Speaker 12: floating on the top of a bathtub.
Speaker 1: There was genuinely no spinning this anyway else. This was
Speaker 1: not a situation where business staffers worked out of an
Speaker 1: office and the team practiced at a local high school
Speaker 1: or college while waiting for their new facility to open up. No,
Speaker 1: this was legitimately an entire NFL team operating out of
Speaker 1: an abandoned elementary school.
Speaker 11: It's an elementary school. It's you walk in and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 11: I went to this school like when I was thirteen.
Speaker 11: That's what it was, was a school.
Speaker 1: Mike Chappel is entering his fortieth year covering the Indianapolis Colts.
Speaker 11: Inside you're thinking, so this is the NFL. Well, no,
Speaker 11: not really. It's a precursor to the NFL until you
Speaker 11: get your headquarters together. So but back then we didn't
Speaker 11: worry about that because, again as a fan invasion, as
Speaker 11: the media, you were just glad to be out to
Speaker 11: that facility for the reason you were.
Speaker 1: As Colts staffers figured out what classrooms everything belonged in,
Speaker 1: they needed to hire some support staff. The team's business
Speaker 1: operations like ticketing, marketing, sponsorships, public relations, et cetera. Were
Speaker 1: largely left behind in Baltimore. The Colts football operations were intact,
Speaker 1: but everything else was in disarray.
Speaker 10: You're starting to fill the staff and the coaches. We'd
Speaker 10: go over to the Irish pub down the street and
Speaker 10: several of the hired secretaries from there at lunch.
Speaker 1: Hower coaching bartenders was one solution to the team's staffing problem,
Speaker 1: but the Colts would quickly find out that they had
Speaker 1: a problem that required more than just a quick fix.
Speaker 13: March twenty nine of eighty four, the Colts arrive in
Speaker 13: Indy and I still remember thinking, wow, that's kind of late,
Speaker 13: you know, in the ticketing process to move, and I thought, wow,
Speaker 13: that's going to be pretty tough for someone over there
Speaker 13: in Indy.
Speaker 1: That's Larry Hall, who in the spring of nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: four was a young twenty somethingter ticketing guy for the
Speaker 1: Cincinnati Bengals. Initially, the Colts figured the staff at the
Speaker 1: Hoosier Dome could handle tickets for the nineteen eighty four season,
Speaker 1: but about a month after settling into Indianapolis, the Colts
Speaker 1: realized demand for their tickets was so high they need
Speaker 1: to hire someone as soon as possible to begin managing
Speaker 1: Indianapolis's intense interest in Colts tickets.
Speaker 13: Their safe Hamory shout to the Brown family. Mike Brown
Speaker 13: calls me and hey, Larry, how.
Speaker 14: You doing good?
Speaker 13: So you know the Colts moved from Baltimore, India. Yes, sir,
Speaker 13: I do know that, And well they've called an asked
Speaker 13: permission to talk to you about being their lid ticket
Speaker 13: guy at the end of this long day, and it
Speaker 13: went really well. I was very open and honest about
Speaker 13: my experience and how I would do it if I
Speaker 13: were doing the ticket process. And at the end of
Speaker 13: the day by Brsees says, you're our guy.
Speaker 15: We want you.
Speaker 8: When can you start?
Speaker 13: And I said, well, I need to go home to talk
Speaker 13: about coaches.
Speaker 16: Call let's whatt tomorrow.
Speaker 13: We want to know, we want to know, right, And
Speaker 13: he was very anxious, and I later found out why
Speaker 13: because they had put out in the newspaper on it.
Speaker 13: I remember a midnight run everyone told me of the
Speaker 13: newspaper had this famous application you could order, you know,
Speaker 13: up to ten tickets in a thirteen day window. Thirty
Speaker 13: thousand applications for one hundred and forty thousand seats poured
Speaker 13: in in a thirteen day window. This is no credit cards,
Speaker 13: this is cashier's checks and money orders, no personal checks.
Speaker 13: So they shut down the post office box and returned
Speaker 13: anything came in after that. But the building held sixty
Speaker 13: twenty seven six zero one two seven.
Speaker 12: That's it.
Speaker 13: So he's got a little bit of a challenge here
Speaker 13: with this this this ticketing demand which is off the charts,
Speaker 13: and it's wonderful and it's great, and the enthusiasm for
Speaker 13: the team, you know, was just at a height that
Speaker 13: I'd never witnessed before.
Speaker 1: Larry Hall began working for the Colts in May, and
Speaker 1: he had less than three months to not just figure
Speaker 1: out who would get tickets, but how they would get them.
Speaker 1: First things first, though, he had to find his office,
Speaker 1: which would be in a classroom at Fall Creek Elementary.
Speaker 13: I'm driving to the complex to go to work for
Speaker 13: the first day. I park and I go in and
Speaker 13: a young lady named Kristin Palmore was receptionist from the
Speaker 13: south side of Ending. She was pretty sassy, and you know,
Speaker 13: had took a high volume of calls everyone know about
Speaker 13: tickets and people from Baltimore still threatening their say family
Speaker 13: was terrible, right terrible, and she could give back pretty
Speaker 13: well to whatever she got on the phone. And I
Speaker 13: remember walking up and saying, well, I'm Larry Hall. I'm
Speaker 13: here to run the ticket office. He said okay, and
Speaker 13: there's a long pause, and I said, dum, is there
Speaker 13: somebody in particular supposed to see She goes, no, I don't,
Speaker 13: but there's open classrooms if you want to find one
Speaker 13: down the hallway. So I just sort of walked down
Speaker 13: the hallway and no computer, no staff. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 13: if I didn't bring a pad and a Penda rite
Speaker 13: with there may not have been one. When you say
Speaker 13: from scratch, I'm talking from scratch, all right. I remember
Speaker 13: going into the classroom that I picked. I forget what
Speaker 13: room number it was, but you know, the ceiling tile
Speaker 13: was kind of had a few leaks and some of
Speaker 13: the tiles were popped up. And my wife came over,
Speaker 13: and we came from pretty humble beginnings, but she walked
Speaker 13: into that room and went We left Cincinnati for this.
Speaker 1: With demand for tickets more than doubling the Hoosier Domes capacity,
Speaker 1: Hall would have to find a solution. Folks in Indianapolis
Speaker 1: were desperate to land tickets to watch their new team play,
Speaker 1: but not everyone would be able to get in the door.
Speaker 1: The plan then became to hold a lottery to determine
Speaker 1: who could get season tickets.
Speaker 13: There was no Indiana lottery at that time. By the way,
Speaker 13: mister say bobber Say Jim's father knew the governor of
Speaker 13: Illinois they had a lottery. He convinced him to borrow
Speaker 13: their lottery machine, put it on his private jet, strap
Speaker 13: it down, bring it over right to Indy, and roll
Speaker 13: that thing out.
Speaker 1: Among those thirty thousand applications, if lottery number six was drawn,
Speaker 1: every sixth person on the list would be able to
Speaker 1: purchase season tickets. For Jeff Haggard and his family, who
Speaker 1: were among the early winners of the ticket lottery, it
Speaker 1: felt like they won the actual lottery. Haggard has been
Speaker 1: a cult season ticket member ever since the team's debut
Speaker 1: in Indianapolis in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 17: It was just going to get really want you know
Speaker 17: ticket back then, because it was all over the news.
Speaker 17: I mean, we actually made it an evening of it.
Speaker 17: We ceramonsly drove the envelopes them in the mailbox and
Speaker 17: put it in and you all gave it a wish
Speaker 17: for reluctant so we could get it. And so when
Speaker 17: we ben we got it was excitement.
Speaker 1: As the week's bled off the calendar that summer, the
Speaker 1: team's staff worked long hours with little sleep, trying to
Speaker 1: get a mountain of tasks completed before the team kicked
Speaker 1: off at the Hoosier Dome for their first preseason game
Speaker 1: that August.
Speaker 9: They could work twenty four hours a day for six
Speaker 9: months and still not be where you wanted to be. Really,
Speaker 9: I had a recurring nightmare that was I would wake
Speaker 9: up like that I overslept for opener, you know, and
Speaker 9: it's like a recurring nightmare, and I'd get to the
Speaker 9: game and it was like half time.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest challenges, as it would turn out,
Speaker 1: would be just getting tickets in the hands of fans
Speaker 1: who bought them. Because the Colts didn't know where they'd
Speaker 1: be playing in nineteen eighty four until late March, and
Speaker 1: because they completed their lottery just a few weeks later,
Speaker 1: there was no guarantee tickets would be printed and in
Speaker 1: the hands of the people that bought them. Before the
Speaker 1: Colts preseason opener on August eleventh, nineteen eighty four against
Speaker 1: the New York Giants, Hall begged the company that printed
Speaker 1: the Colts tickets to speed up the process. They couldn't.
Speaker 13: We were really, really behind any normal process for any team,
Speaker 13: and did our best to accelerate everything, including asking a
Speaker 13: company out of Arkansas that printed the tickets then to
Speaker 13: expedite things, and they said, for a number of reasons,
Speaker 13: they really couldn't. We offered to pay more money. We said, hey,
Speaker 13: can you put a third shift on, can do Saturdays?
Speaker 13: We're kind of already doing that, you know, So it's
Speaker 13: getting closer and close to the first game, and we're
Speaker 13: really thinking ourselves, what's what's the plan B? Is there
Speaker 13: a plan B if we can't physically get someone a ticket?
Speaker 13: So we started literally thinking, is there a way? Do
Speaker 13: you just have to at some point open the gates
Speaker 13: and trust people.
Speaker 1: The Colts ultimately had to hand deliver some tickets just
Speaker 1: before that first game at the Hoosier Dome to ensure
Speaker 1: all sixty two hundred and thirty six fans could get
Speaker 1: in the door to the seats they had purchased.
Speaker 13: I remember different people's personalities and how we all got along,
Speaker 13: and you know, with that common cause and knowing that
Speaker 13: this is such a abbreviation, i'll call it a short runway.
Speaker 13: You got to stick to landing. I would imagine I
Speaker 13: haven't done that, but I've seen video right of landing
Speaker 13: on an aircraft carrier where you've just got it. You
Speaker 13: got to get right, because if you don't, the game's
Speaker 13: gonna happen anyway, right, and you'll deal with whatever issues happened.
Speaker 1: There's maybe never been more buzz for a preseason game
Speaker 1: than when the Colts kicked off against the Giants that August.
Speaker 17: Without looking it up, we.
Speaker 11: Twenty.
Speaker 17: I mean, it's funny, I can it just it was
Speaker 17: you think about the movie Rudy when Ned Batty said
Speaker 17: this is the greatest thing of it ever seen, you know,
Speaker 17: and then that's when you know as a FOOTBA player,
Speaker 17: that's what we felt. It just we stopped at the
Speaker 17: top of the concourse and when we first won't walk
Speaker 17: in and you just stopped, just just just looking around.
Speaker 17: And and even though it was a preseason game, I mean,
Speaker 17: the crowd was just raucous. It was loud, it was fun,
Speaker 17: and you know, it's it's one of those games and
Speaker 17: I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: But the attention on the game wasn't all good.
Speaker 10: It was crazy, you know, and we had so many
Speaker 10: death threats and everything else. And so the FBI or
Speaker 10: whatever agency gave me a bulletproof best and a and
Speaker 10: a gun for my ankle, so you know, this is
Speaker 10: optional for the first Giant preseason game.
Speaker 4: My wife saw me putting out as.
Speaker 10: He was like, what the hell are you doing. I going, well,
Speaker 10: something some bitch comes after us.
Speaker 4: I'm being prepared.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 1: Most people in Baltimore, of course, were not going to
Speaker 1: commit a felony over losing their team, but It's important
Speaker 1: to remember that Indianapolis's gain of a team came at
Speaker 1: a cost. Bill Hudnutt even admitted that, saying in a
Speaker 1: TV interview in nineteen eighty four that he felt sorry
Speaker 1: for the people of Baltimore, but he also emphasized he
Speaker 1: had to do right by Indianapolis as the city's mayor.
Speaker 1: Debbie Knox, the longtime Wish TV reporter, certainly spared a
Speaker 1: thought for Baltimore amid Indianapolis's celebration.
Speaker 13: I just remember having a little bit of a sort
Speaker 13: of felt sorry for the people of Baltimore because at
Speaker 13: the time they didn't have the Ravens, you know, so
Speaker 13: here they were bereft, you know what.
Speaker 1: Now, back in Baltimore, in the days and weeks following
Speaker 1: the Colts move, there were a few prevailing emotions among
Speaker 1: the population. While Indianapolis was able to puff out its
Speaker 1: chest as an NFL city, all of a sudden, Baltimore
Speaker 1: was deflated to no longer be able to say that.
Speaker 18: It was hard to see people who were really attached
Speaker 18: to that organization and to the idea of an NFL team.
Speaker 1: Jane Miller reported for WBALTV from Owings Mills the night
Speaker 1: the Colts moved.
Speaker 18: I think that's one of the things I really learned
Speaker 18: throughout my career in criticularly in Baltimore, because it went
Speaker 18: through this. There's kind of a psyche about having an
Speaker 18: NFL team that is really pretty powerful, and that people were.
Speaker 5: Really missed them, miss missed the idea of it.
Speaker 18: A team may not have been all that good at
Speaker 18: the end of the day, but certainly the fact that
Speaker 18: the Colts got everybody you know, refers to it as
Speaker 18: being stolen, stolen away in the middle of the night.
Speaker 18: So the fact that that happened, I think, you know,
Speaker 18: really a lot of people were very, very sad.
Speaker 1: John Zeman, the leader of the Colt band, who was
Speaker 1: auditioning drummers for the nineteen eighty four season the night
Speaker 1: the Colts moved, remembered an empty feeling waking up on
Speaker 1: March twenty ninth.
Speaker 4: The next day, commerce was moving on Baltimore. Nobody died,
Speaker 4: the son came, but we lost a big part of
Speaker 4: Rupert and the way it was done, it was heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: For the city of Baltimore losing the Colts. Even if
Speaker 1: most people were resigned to that outcome by the time
Speaker 1: the team left, it was still a baffling feeling.
Speaker 19: There are certain things in life. We just went through
Speaker 19: one of them here in Baltimore with the collapse of
Speaker 19: the Francis Scott key Bridge. There are certain things in
Speaker 19: life where you look at as permanent and all of
Speaker 19: a sudden they're not.
Speaker 1: Jerry Sandusky is a Baltimore native and is the voice
Speaker 1: of the Ravens.
Speaker 19: The Baltimore Colts were a permanent part of this town.
Speaker 19: They were. You can make a case that the Baltimore
Speaker 19: Colts and the Baltimore Orioles are the axis that this
Speaker 19: town kind of gravitated around in winter and in spring
Speaker 19: and in football season, in baseball season, and to have
Speaker 19: one of them removed was so devastating and disorienting.
Speaker 1: Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaeffer gave a dour press conference
Speaker 1: outside his home the day after the Colts left, but
Speaker 1: a few days later he tried to put a smile
Speaker 1: on the face of his residence.
Speaker 18: It was a Monday morning in downtown Baltimore. Some of
Speaker 18: the curbs had been painted pink for his Pink Positive Day.
Speaker 18: He realized that there was.
Speaker 5: The whole mood was very dim.
Speaker 18: And you know, trying to like cheer up the place.
Speaker 1: But among the sadness that permeated the city of Baltimore,
Speaker 1: there was also hope and determination. For years, state and
Speaker 1: local officials didn't think the Colts would actually leave, but
Speaker 1: they were worried about the chances their much more successful
Speaker 1: baseball team would skip town. The loss of the Colts,
Speaker 1: painful as it was, spurred action to begin working to
Speaker 1: keep the Orioles, who won the World Series five months
Speaker 1: before Mayflower Van showed up in Owings Mills.
Speaker 19: The second the shocks settled in eighty four that hey,
Speaker 19: wait a second, If Baltimore Colts aren't actually a permanent
Speaker 19: part of this community, the Baltimore Orioles could move too.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, the roles between Baltimore and Indianapolis
Speaker 1: were kind of reversed. For years, Indianapolis had worked hard
Speaker 1: to keep the Pacers, knowing if their NBA team left,
Speaker 1: their chances of getting an NFL team were slim to none.
Speaker 1: Now for Baltimore, there was an urgency to keep their
Speaker 1: major League baseball team, knowing if the Orioles were to leave,
Speaker 1: the chances they'd get another NFL team were pretty slim.
Speaker 1: On January twentieth nineteen eighty five, The Baltimore Sun reported
Speaker 1: that Mayor William Donald Schaefer was lobbying the Maryland state
Speaker 1: legislature for funds to build a new stadium for the Orioles,
Speaker 1: and after years of strain between the mayor's office and
Speaker 1: state government over stadium funding, state delegates were starting to
Speaker 1: shift their stance. One delegate told the Sun quote, something
Speaker 1: should be done to make sure the Orioles don't leave
Speaker 1: and encourage the NFL to put a team here. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the shock of the Colts leaving did spur action. There
Speaker 1: would be a new stadium for the Orioles. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't just a new stadium. Oriol Park at Camden Yards,
Speaker 1: which opened in nineteen ninety two, began a wave of
Speaker 1: retro inspired Major League Baseball parks, and that home of
Speaker 1: the Orioles is still regarded as one of baseball's best stadiums,
Speaker 1: and it's still a source of pride for people in Baltimore,
Speaker 1: and Camden Yards ensured the Orioles would stay in Baltimore.
Speaker 19: Now you've got the footprint that, Okay, this team's not moving,
Speaker 19: which makes it really idyllic when a few years later
Speaker 19: you bring in the Ravens, and they set up shop
Speaker 19: right next door, and you have this magnificent downtown ballpark complex,
Speaker 19: and it rejuvenates the city, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 19: Baltimore gets a step back into some of his glory days.
Speaker 1: Baltimore was passed over when the NFL expanded in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety five, much to the anger and frustration of a
Speaker 1: city that had worked hard to not only support the Orioles,
Speaker 1: but to show it was still a destination for the NFL.
Speaker 1: A major part of those efforts was the cult band
Speaker 1: led by Zeeman, which stayed together after the team moved.
Speaker 1: It's the subject of a fantastic ESPN thirty for thirty
Speaker 1: called The Band That Wouldn't Die. But by nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: Cleveland Brown's owner Art Modell was experiencing the same stadium
Speaker 1: related pains Carol Rosenbloom and Robert Ursay went through in Baltimore.
Speaker 1: Cleveland was not willing or able to build the Browns
Speaker 1: a new stadium, and their home of Cleveland Stadium was deteriorating.
Speaker 1: Baltimore offered the promise of a new stadium if Modell
Speaker 1: moved his ball club. On November sixth, nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: Modell announced that the Cleveland Browns would play their final
Speaker 1: game in Ohio that year and they would relocate to
Speaker 1: Baltimore for the nineteen ninety six season. It would be
Speaker 1: the second time Baltimore gained a team called the Browns
Speaker 1: and renamed them after a bird. The news brought elation
Speaker 1: and relief to NFL fans in Baltimore, but it also
Speaker 1: came with some mixed emotions because everyone in Baltimore remembered
Speaker 1: what they went through just over a decade prior.
Speaker 19: Nineteen ninety six rolls around and the Cleveland Browns moved
Speaker 19: to Baltimore, and we're on the other end of the move,
Speaker 19: and so we understood what they were going through in Cleveland,
Speaker 19: and as excited as we were in Baltimore to see
Speaker 19: the NFL return, it was a little tricky having lived
Speaker 19: on both sides of having somebody's heart ripped out. Once
Speaker 19: you know you're on the receiving end, once you're on
Speaker 19: the losing end.
Speaker 1: The Baltimore Ravens, twenty eight years later, are one of
Speaker 1: the NFL's model franchises. They've won two Super Bowls and
Speaker 1: they're a consistent contender in the AFC They have their
Speaker 1: own franchise legends, from Ray Lewis to Terrell Suggs to
Speaker 1: Joe Flacco and now Lamar Jackson. But for those old
Speaker 1: enough to remember the Baltimore Colts, there's still this lingering
Speaker 1: sense of loss.
Speaker 8: I was angry about it for so long, bro, I
Speaker 8: lan ended at your airport and I went in passed
Speaker 8: the Kolachi stand and into Center City for years and
Speaker 8: would see that cult shop.
Speaker 3: In the mall.
Speaker 8: It would piss me off.
Speaker 1: Nestor Apparitio is a radio host in Baltimore.
Speaker 8: I told you how angry it made me just to
Speaker 8: see the horseshoe, like, no bullshit, dude, like real angry.
Speaker 8: It felt very stolen to me. It felt like a
Speaker 8: little peace. So my soul's been taken. Time.
Speaker 4: They say heels all pain, but losing the Colts, I
Speaker 4: don't think it will in Baltimore, especially with the older generation.
Speaker 4: You've got to realize. Now, let's face it, in Baltimore
Speaker 4: and Indy, they're going to say there was a Baltimore Coults,
Speaker 4: the Indie cults were in Baltimore.
Speaker 1: The success of the Ravens might be a happy ending
Speaker 1: to this story. In Baltimore. But maybe the best way
Speaker 1: to put it is that it's complicated. For some the
Speaker 1: animosity toward the Colts and Robert or say has not faded.
Speaker 1: For others, it has.
Speaker 8: All these years later, it's really I'm fifty five now,
Speaker 8: it's like a second marriage. It's like a marriage you
Speaker 8: had in your twenties, or girlfriend you had at high school,
Speaker 8: or the girl you went the problem with. All these
Speaker 8: years later, you're happy. She's in Indianapolis living a good life,
Speaker 8: and you know, had a Super Bowl and whatever.
Speaker 19: I don't have any enmity towards Indianapolis. Mayor Nutt was
Speaker 19: smart enough to see the landscape of the NFL and
Speaker 19: took advantage of it. He played the game to the
Speaker 19: advantage of that. He did his job. You know, the
Speaker 19: politicians in Baltimore misplayed it, the politicians in Cleveland misplayed it,
Speaker 19: and other cities benefited and lost from the way they
Speaker 19: played the game.
Speaker 4: I've seen that horseshoe and I see the good times,
Speaker 4: the championships, the love I had for this professional football team,
Speaker 4: the pride I had in miss team. But my heart
Speaker 4: belongs to the birdie head helmet. That's my team. That's
Speaker 4: my team.
Speaker 1: No city is ever happy or okay with losing their team,
Speaker 1: of course, but there is something different about Baltimore losing
Speaker 1: the Colts. As Jerry Sandusky explained.
Speaker 19: To me, those other moves did not have those historical
Speaker 19: threads that we were talking about with beating the biggest cities,
Speaker 19: producing the biggest stars, giving birth to coaching legends. They
Speaker 19: didn't have that.
Speaker 1: And because of the depth of the Colts' roots in Baltimore,
Speaker 1: the pain, it just won't go away for some people there.
Speaker 19: For people over probably fifty years old in Baltimore, there's
Speaker 19: still a touch of pain for a lot of them,
Speaker 19: and a lot of them still will not say the
Speaker 19: Indianapolis Colts. They'll just say the Colts. Look, it didn't
Speaker 19: work out great for Indianapolis. And here's the one that
Speaker 19: I remind people of now, the Colts have been in
Speaker 19: Indianapolis longer than they were in Baltimore. I don't know
Speaker 19: that things work out the way they should, things work
Speaker 19: out the way they do, and they just worked out
Speaker 19: the way they do. And over time, the Baltimore Colts
Speaker 19: will become like the Brooklyn Dodgers, where people who aren't
Speaker 19: older don't even know that really the Colts played in Baltimore.
Speaker 1: So that's the PostScript to our story in Baltimore. But
Speaker 1: the other part of this story is how Indianapolis over
Speaker 1: the last forty years has made good on its opportunity
Speaker 1: to be an NFL city. Just this spring, demand for
Speaker 1: Colts season tickets was so high that a waiting list
Speaker 1: was created to secure twenty twenty five season tickets. Trust me,
Speaker 1: Colts fans are as loud, loyal, passionate, and knowledgeable as
Speaker 1: any fan base in the NFL. That development into one
Speaker 1: of the best fan bases in the league, though, didn't
Speaker 1: happen overnight.
Speaker 12: What was evident once the season started was that it
Speaker 12: was a basketball state with a tremendous heritage. Because whenever
Speaker 12: the offense got in the field, they were cheering. So
Speaker 12: we kind of kind of hold our hands down, like no, no,
Speaker 12: no cheer when they're on defense.
Speaker 13: Well, I'll never forget it.
Speaker 6: People were cheering everything.
Speaker 13: Everything, They would cheer, everything didn't matter.
Speaker 11: It was clear.
Speaker 13: All I knew was had an NFL team.
Speaker 9: And I do remember that season seeing a lot of
Speaker 9: people reading the newspaper. They just hadn't learned. They weren't
Speaker 9: avid NFL fans. In eighty four, the crowd was really
Speaker 9: into NFL football, you know, they spent their lives watching
Speaker 9: the Packers or Bears on TV. You know, and and
Speaker 9: here's finally, NFL football is in Indianapolis. But there was not
Speaker 9: a speck of blue in the crowd. Speck of blue,
Speaker 9: you know, unless somebody's wearing something by accident.
Speaker 14: There was a learning curve to becoming a crowd.
Speaker 1: I think there were reasons to be optimistic as the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four season began, and not just because the
Speaker 1: Colts were making their Indianapolis debut. In nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: the Colts were six and four at one point, and
Speaker 1: while they stumbled to a seven to nine finish, the
Speaker 1: hope was a young roster led by Frank Cush and
Speaker 1: bolstered by two top twenty draft picks, could give Indianapolis
Speaker 1: a playoff contender right away.
Speaker 4: You gotta play New England, My Emmy and the Chats,
Speaker 4: the Niners, Browns and Chargers, plus both them La Threads.
Speaker 6: Lad.
Speaker 1: The Colts lost three of their first four games, including
Speaker 1: when they blew a nine point lead in their second
Speaker 1: game at the Hoosier Dome, which wound up being a
Speaker 1: one point loss to the Saint Louis Cardinals.
Speaker 9: It started out pretty good. We lost our opener, and
Speaker 9: then we won our second game. It was at Houston.
Speaker 9: We won it pretty handily. We really played well. And
Speaker 9: then we came home and played Saint Louis and we
Speaker 9: were kicking their ass, and then the crowd was so excited,
Speaker 9: We're really doing well. And then they came from behind
Speaker 9: and kicked a field goal with I think a few
Speaker 9: seconds remaining at one, you know, and then things guy
Speaker 9: went downhill from there.
Speaker 16: Colts these schedule is.
Speaker 1: The Colts won just two of their eight games at
Speaker 1: the Hoosier Dome that season, and they lost their final
Speaker 1: five games, finishing their first year in Indianapolis with a
Speaker 1: four and twelve record. Head coach Frank Cush resigned with
Speaker 1: one week left in the season to go coach in
Speaker 1: the USFL. The team he left the Colts for the
Speaker 1: Arizona Outlaws, who played in Phoenix.
Speaker 9: I think when we didn't move the Phoenix that kind
Speaker 9: of sealed it for him, and he left to go
Speaker 9: to the USFL in December before the end of the season.
Speaker 16: The Wosia Dome is lovely, what is sight, But when
Speaker 16: the team plays football.
Speaker 4: Things never worked out right long, Lord.
Speaker 12: We struggled a little bit, and we never really caught
Speaker 12: her momentum. It was just kind of awkward. So you
Speaker 12: can blame it on transition, But I just think we
Speaker 12: were a really, really young team and we kind of
Speaker 12: thrived on the confidence factor. So we were just young.
Speaker 12: I think in essence, we were playing with reckless at
Speaker 12: bat in eighty three, and maybe with all the changes
Speaker 12: in eighty four, it was just a little bit much
Speaker 12: for us.
Speaker 15: I felt like it was such a disappointment, and it
Speaker 15: was a disappointment from the standpoint that here we had
Speaker 15: a fan base that was just ready to roll, and
Speaker 15: we didn't provide them with the kind of team that
Speaker 15: they could really jump on top of.
Speaker 1: The Colts won just twelve games over their first three
Speaker 1: seasons in Indianapolis, inspiring Duke Tomato to write and perform
Speaker 1: the folks see Lord, help our Colts tune on the
Speaker 1: Bob and Tom Show. But even with those early struggles,
Speaker 1: the vibes around the city were still good regarding their
Speaker 1: new football.
Speaker 5: Team, even though they didn't have great success early, Right,
Speaker 5: You've just felt they were building something.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Madis is an Indianapolis native and a former radio
Speaker 1: host in our city.
Speaker 5: Not a great deal of on field success, but still
Speaker 5: building something in the community that was ours and the
Speaker 5: beach cherished.
Speaker 1: The interest and appreciation for the Colts was born partly
Speaker 1: from it being the NFL, which, in the twenty five
Speaker 1: years since the Colts triumph over the New York Giants
Speaker 1: and the greatest game ever played, had passed baseball to
Speaker 1: become America's dominant most popular sport. But for Indianapolis residents,
Speaker 1: the Colts represented something bigger than just a football team.
Speaker 14: Obviously, the Pacers were already here, but the NFL has
Speaker 14: a certain level of us of prestige that just added
Speaker 14: to the prestige of Indianapolis.
Speaker 5: It was like we've gotten to the promised Land.
Speaker 11: NFL is us something different. It elevates the city. It
Speaker 11: just does when you're one of whatever would have been
Speaker 11: back there, twenty eight teams or whatever.
Speaker 3: When the Colts arrived, it was as if Indianapolis had arrived.
Speaker 16: Oh and the praise to a MEN'SI balloy of honors
Speaker 16: and fame and told foraching I had to attain the
Speaker 16: goal the Indianapolis Colts to concor and winoo all.
Speaker 1: The work put into downtown Indianapolis by mayors Richard Luger
Speaker 1: and Bill Hudnutt, by movers and shakers like David Frick
Speaker 1: and Jim Morris, and by the support of the community
Speaker 1: had built to this crescendo. Indianapolis was no longer this
Speaker 1: sleepy little town known for basketball and race cars in
Speaker 1: the middle of Flyover Country. Indianapolis was now in NFL
Speaker 1: city with an established presence on American TV sets every
Speaker 1: Sunday between September and December.
Speaker 14: And it certainly builds our reputation.
Speaker 1: Tom Griswold is the law long time host to The
Speaker 1: Bob and Tom Show, which has been broadcast from Indianapolis
Speaker 1: since nineteen eighty three. The song We're playing, by the
Speaker 1: Way is called in praise of the Indianapolis Colts, and
Speaker 1: it was sung by Luciano Gaspacho on The Bob and
Speaker 1: Tom Show in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 14: Here's a really pretentious one percent or example I interview
Speaker 14: because that's.
Speaker 17: What I do.
Speaker 12: I was skiing.
Speaker 14: I've been skiing for years and I don't know if
Speaker 14: you ski or not.
Speaker 4: When you do, you have occasion.
Speaker 14: To get on a chair lift with a bunch of
Speaker 14: strangers or whatever.
Speaker 17: It might be.
Speaker 14: Back in the day, you'd get on the chair lift
Speaker 14: and someone to go where you're from, and you'd say Indianapolis.
Speaker 14: Go oh yeah, that's that's.
Speaker 4: Where the five hundred is.
Speaker 14: Pretty soon ask you about the late eighties. It was suddenly,
Speaker 14: oh yeah, you guys got the calls.
Speaker 16: Bob say to his team and began to roam. Heya.
Speaker 16: Pud Nut said, hey, here's a Randall Dome ball. Tim
Speaker 16: Mar was a man the most di fall but not recent.
Speaker 16: Cheer the culture right here, they phoned the new home.
Speaker 1: In the forty years since the Colts moved to Indianapolis,
Speaker 1: the metropolitan area's population has boomed from about eight hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty thousand to nearly two million in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: and at a time when some other Midwestern and Rust
Speaker 1: Belt cities have experienced population declines, Indianapolis and the surrounding
Speaker 1: area have grown. A lot went into that, of course,
Speaker 1: but at least a small part of it, I think
Speaker 1: it's fair to say is because Indianapolis has had a
Speaker 1: national and international presence thanks to its NFL team.
Speaker 11: Indy wasn't just a ghost down at all. I'm not
Speaker 11: saying that, but it was centered around the track in
Speaker 11: basketball and the NFL. It just coming here, it just
Speaker 11: elevated the city's reputation, presence and all of that. And
Speaker 11: we've seen how it's grown exponentially since then and.
Speaker 1: Over the Colts forty years in Indianapolis, the team has
Speaker 1: become as deeply ingrained in this community as it was
Speaker 1: in Baltimore. Jim Ersay and his family didn't just bring
Speaker 1: Indianapolis a Super Bowl trope. They've invested in the community
Speaker 1: through several initiatives, the latest being Kicking the Stigma, which
Speaker 1: over the last few years has made real positive change
Speaker 1: to our state's mental health services. Peyton Manning helped bring
Speaker 1: Indianapolis not just a championship, but a children's hospital, a
Speaker 1: new stadium, and scores of locals born after nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: eight named after him and today. Something that always strikes
Speaker 1: me about the Colts is how supportive the entire team
Speaker 1: is of the community. I think about how Kenny Moore
Speaker 1: the second ran out of the tunnel in twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: with Mighty Mason Garvey, a nine year old with terminal
Speaker 1: cancer who the Colts cornerback befriended. I think about t
Speaker 1: Y Hilton, the South Florida native star wide receiver who
Speaker 1: stayed in the area after his playing career ended, showing
Speaker 1: up to almost every Indiana Fever game. I think about
Speaker 1: going out in the community to playgrounds or farmers' markets
Speaker 1: or restaurants and spotting current players mingling with locals, and
Speaker 1: more than anything, I think about how hard it is
Speaker 1: to imagine Indiana the city we know today without the Colts.
Speaker 14: For the most part, a lot of the gentlemen who
Speaker 14: have played for the Colts have been gentlemen and real
Speaker 14: quality people, which I think has been extremely helpful and
Speaker 14: it makes makes the city and all the people here
Speaker 14: kind of proud. We've got some really good people that
Speaker 14: are part of our group here in town.
Speaker 16: And the praise to a mensable, honest and fame mental
Speaker 16: had to attain the call to concord and win the soul.
Speaker 20: Thank you for listening to The Move. All four episodes
Speaker 20: are available to download on the Colts Audio Network. Episode
Speaker 20: four of The Move was written and narrated by JJ
Speaker 20: Snakobitz and produced by Casey Valier. Amber Harrow, Dave Knickerbocker,
Speaker 20: and Matt Taylor contributed with research and editing.