Departure of the Baltimore Colts: Heartbreak in Charm City

On March twenty ninth, nineteen eighty four, Baltimore Colts packed up everything into the now famous Mayflower moving vans and left Baltimore all in one night. But why do they leave so fast and so quickly? We'll dive into the store behind how the Colts ended up in Indianapolis today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day now. The Baltimore Colts have been successful since their team started in nineteen fifty three. They had one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, Johnny Unitas, and won a Super Bowl. But the biggest problem they had was their stadium. Memorial Stadium, which was built originally in the nineteen twenties, continuously needed renovations and there's always challenges to get that done. The Colts actually used to be owned by Carol rosenblam In in nineteen sixty nine, he had had so many issues with the stadium in the condition that he didn't want to continue playing rental fees on it, so he even considered building his own stadium with his own money at a new location, but he got tired of fighting with the city in the state overfunding, so he actually made an unusual move. He traded franchises with Robert Ersay, who in the La Rams and Robert Ersa comes in and immediately wants to update the stadium, and they even put together a plan to build the Bolto Dome, similar to the Astrodome, would be a seventy five million dollar complex that would house football, baseball, hockey, and bet basketball. But they can never get the funding for it and they continued to have issues with the stadium and starting in nineteen seventy five, Rubbert Orsay started to shop around for locations that he could move to as they consistently as per funding to help the stadium and got no funding and results. They went to places such as Memphis, Jacksonville, Birmingham, Phoenix, and Indianapolis. Ursay made a final push and at one point they almost got the funding they needed. They requested twenty five million dollars to renovate the stadium and they got twenty three million dollars approved, but it required the Colts and the Baltimore Orioles of the MLB to also sign long term leases, but the Orioles didn't want to be part of this, as the renovations would not actually help for the baseball aspect of it and they wanted to have their own stadium. Or Say refused to sign long term as well and went on a yearly basis. Then in nineteen eighty four, with pressure from the city and state coming with negotiations with the State of Maryland going nowhere continuously, or Say had had enough and he was given permission from the other NFL owners to move his franchise to the city of his choosing, and he had narrated down to Phoenix or Indianapolis, getting pitches from both of them. But on March twenty seventh, nineteen eighty four, the Maryland Senate hasted legislation giving Baltimore the right to seize the Colts due to imminent domain. Imminent domain is the power for the state to take over private property for public use, and it is most commonly used to take over roads or government buildings and has been used for many railroads, but had never been used in this aspect before to keep a team, but Baltimore was desperate not to lose the Colts, as they knew they'd been shopping around. This caused Robert Ersay and his son, now owner of the Colts, Jim Ersay, to jump into action, and they called a friend of theirs that owned a Mayflower moving company back in Indiana and asked for as many trucks as they could get to Baltimore as quickly as possible, and they hired local college students to pack up everything they had because if the Colts were no longer in Maryland, the state could not cease anything. Even while they were loading the trucks, which took a little more than eight hours, they weren't completely sure where they were going. They didn't tell the drivers where they were going before they left, and that afternoon, Phoenix actually pulled their offer, worried about what the Senate's legislation would do to the team, so the Colts accepted are any Napolis offers, giving the Colts owners over twelve million dollar loan, a four million dollar training complex, plus the use of the brand new Hoosier Dome, which seated over fifty five thousand people, giving them a new stadium they've always wanted. But the Ursays were still worried about Maryland taking possession of the Colts, so loading up the now famous pictures of those Mayflower trucks. They told the fifteen drivers to all go in different directions and not take the main highway until they got out of Maryland. They were worried that the state police might stop them and delay the chances of them getting to their new city. After they got out of the state of Maryland, they were all able to head straight over to Indiana, and once they entered Indiana, they were police escorted to their new training facility. Now this was a little bit of a shady tactic to keep Maryland from getting what they want on it, but the Airstays came to an agreement with the city of Baltimore and told them they were to endorse a team in Baltimore if there was ever a chance for expansion in the NFL, which we all know did happen as Baltimore are now the Ravens, which they came over from Cleveland. And that's a whole other story for another day. Thank you for listening to Today's Daily Sports History. If you like this, please rate and review wherever you're listening. We'd love to hear how much you're enjoying the show, and that way we can make the show even better for you. In the coming days, so come back tomorrow for more daily sports history.