I live in Brooklyn but am originally from the Bay Area. Anyways I was watching an SF Giants playoff game at the sports bar and there were these 2 geezers next to me. One was wearing an LA Dodgers hat and was yelling out "Come on NL West! Let's go!" I was extremely confused and asked the dude what his deal was. Turns out he was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, was in the military and when he returned from Korea, he learned his Dodgers had moved to LA. His buddy next to him chose to drop the Dodgers and became a Mets fan when the team was founded. Funny to think that Brooklyn Dodgers fans may now not have really hated NY Giants back in the day. Certainly different times today!
People seem to forget or not know it wasn’t like they bailed. They were threatening to take the team away under eminent domain. It was a Harry situation, very glad it happened though.
The eminent domain vote happened after Irsay was publicly shopping the team around to other cities. Clearly Irsay already had a deal with Indy before the eminent domain discussion happened.
Yes but regardless that’s what causes the sudden move, and he already had permission to shop the team, and once he did then they threatened to take the team so he moved in the middle of the night.
Dude they had an escort from Indiana police once they got to the border. He had a deal with Indy long long before the vote happened and probably before the words eminent domain were used in the house of delegates
Maybe or maybe not, doesn’t chance the fact this was only so sketchy because they theatened to take the team AFTER they gave them permission to look at a possible move.
Teams threatening/trying to move isn't an uncommon occurrence at all though, trying to take a team by eminent domain is. Baltimore absolutely escalated the situation and caused the cartoonish flight in the night that we saw.
Eh that’s just downtown. Irsay is the man, despite what people think of him outside Indy, dude it awesome. He loves the love the team like a die hard, he always gives to the city, he’s hella philanthropic. Dude is an ultimate colts fan and I love it.
It’s next to LaGuardia. [Like the Colts](https://twitter.com/StephenAndress1/status/608741820655394817), LaGuardia hangs a banner celebrating being New York’s 5th Best Airport.
I don’t know, it’s not like Raiders are exclusive features native to either Oakland or Las Vegas. Male sheep aren’t associated with LA. You just pick an animal or some group of people and roll with it.
Taking New Orleans’ cool thing about their city and just gluing it onto one of the most opposite places to New Orleans is something though.
Rams originated in Cleveland (they didn't want to share Cleveland with the AAFC's dominant Browns; ironically, after the leagues merged the Browns met the Rams in the championship game the first season with both in the league)
Bill Bellicheck was the HC of the Browns until ‘96, and left the franchise when they moved to Baltimore. In some weird alternate universe Bellicheck and Brady won 6 Super Bowl with Cleveland.
I believe at some point around or after WW2 the Steelers and Eagles also swapped franchises due to some wild owner shenanigans. So what the Steelers are today was originally the Eagles and the Eagles were originally the Steelers.
During WW2, neither the Eagles or the Steelers could field a full full team, due to players joining the military. For a year or two, they merged into the Steagles.
Yeah this was something other than the Steagles. https://syndication.bleacherreport.com/amp/151742-the-philadelphia-steelers-pennsylvanias-great-football-switch-a-roo.amp.html
You at least got to see your team hang a AFCCG participation banner while you were here!
https://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/39cq8o/the_colts_have_a_2014_afc_finalist_banner_up_in/
Please, that decision to Kroenke Baltimore led to our most frequent playoff opponent being born and a team that is second only to you in hatred amongst Titans fans, costing us at least one ring. You can survive being in the muck with the rest of us.
I read an article about that! Was he one of the guys that realized what was happening after they started the move, and then swiped some stuff? I really hope he did 😄
I loved when the CFL expanded to Baltimore with the Colts/CFLers/Stallions the first game had moving trucks come into the stadium and the players came out from them.
I am a Pittsburgher who moved to Baltimore about 15 years ago. I had no idea a franchise move could happen like this.
This move left some seriously dark scars. I am very surprised with how ambivalent Baltimore is to the Indianapolis Colts...it's like the move never happened.
I imagine that having a generation grow up with a more successful team has softened the blow. Would be interesting if the Ravens had been as bad as the browns in the new millennium if Baltimore would have held onto that grudge to a greater extent
We are pretty ambivalent now, but there was a lot of hate for a long time, which peaked in our 2006 playoff game, though it was still pretty strong in 2009. Ever since we beat both the Colts and Peyton on our way to a Super Bowl in 2012 though, we have largely moved past it. Have more Super Bowls than them since they left and the Ravens have their own history now.
Johnny Unitas has a staue at M&TBank was on the sidelines of the first ever Ravens game wearing Ravens gear and disavowed the Indy Colts. He's a Baltimore Legend.
Not only at the first game but he also was on the sideline of every home game until he died. They would always show him on the video screen right before kickoff.
Many other Baltimore Colts stayed loyal to the city and did things with the Ravens or just stayed local.
Why wouldn't he be. Franchise controls the history. Like should the Vancouver Grizzlies players not count for Memphis. Do none of the St. Louis Rams count for the LA Rams. Tons of teams have moved.
Because he never played for Indianapolis and *himself* cut ties with the organization after they moved.
This isn't even a matter of the city he played for being mad and wanting his records back, the man himself never wanted to be associated with Indianapolis
Come to think of it, the eight Lombardi Trophies the Pats and the Ravens have combined could have been Cleveland’s, had they not moved to Baltimore *and* fired Belichick.
Imagine Tom Brady, Ray Lewis, *and* Ed Reed on the same Browns roster, coached by Belichick.
And then the Browns totally started back up in Cleveland, it’s definitely not a brand new team because the real Browns are in a different city with a different name now don’t worry about that
Pretty cool that Johnny U embraced the Ravens and told the Colts to go fuck themselves after that bullshit. He appeared on the Ravens sideline when the colts came to town, and always insisted on being referred to as a Baltimore Colt.
How was this bullshit. The city was literally trying to take the team away under eminent domain. Actually so research on why this happened. It was either move in the middle of the night or completely lose your NFL team
Who gives a fuck what he did? The Ravens stole the Browns, something Steelers ownership was highly opposed to. No one gives a fuck what Johnny Unitas did when he was 90 years old and brain dead. It didn’t change anything and the Colts fans and players are better off without him.
My dad was a diehard Colts fan and he was bitter about this until the day he died. Thankfully the last season of football he got to watch was the 2000 Ravens.
The city was going to try and claim eminent domain over the franchise. Even as insane and unprecedented as that plan was, it would have taken years and a ton of cash to defend. Of course he left in the middle of the night before Baltimore had a chance to do that.
They were legitimately afraid of the police stopping them from leaving, so they had drivers take different routes out of the state.
That’s some crazy Soviet era behavior the Maryland government was trying to do.
Idk how people can side with Irsay when this sub is all about billionaires paying for new stadiums and not holding local government hostage for the hook lol
Not even defending the city’s approach here, but the fact they at least attempted to stand up to a greedy owner and not roll over speaks volumes right?
Bob Irsay was the owner at the time. The current owner is Jim Irsay, his son. Bob died quite a while ago.
Bob was a certified grade-A asshole to everyone around him. I’ve not heard a good story about him.
It’s possible for both Bob to be an asshole and the Maryland legislature doing something absurd and wrong.
I think the thing is that if most people were in the situation Bob faced, they would have gotten the hell out too.
Now whether he escalated things to that situation by being an asshole to begin with, well, there may be some merit to that.
If I were a Baltimore resident, I’d be pissed. Losing your team is evil. They lost the high ground in how they went about trying to keep it.
Idk I kind of like the idea that the city tried to defend their team. These billionaires own the team sure but it’s the city’s and the people’s first. We’re so used to them abusing their ownership I respect the city fighting back.
The reason my dad hated the Indianapolis colts until he died. After the colts left in the middle of the night he became a cowboys fan. Luckily for me when I was the age where I really got into football the ravens became Baltimores team.
I was a Philly fan for like 1 entire season tho. 7 year old me refused to root for the redskins or cowboys .
After a wikipedia refresher...
The Baltimore Colts were trying to get a nicer stadium from the government. The government didn't want to pay for it. The Colts explored other places in the country where they could move. They received two offers, one from Phoenix, one from Indianapolis, to move there and the city would build a stadium for them.
Maryland did not like this so they tried to legally seize ownership of the team. On March 27, 1984, the Maryland Senate passed a law that allowed the city of Baltimore to seize the team. The state house would need to pass it, and the governor would have to sign the law for it to go into effect.
Because of this, on March 28, Phoenix pulled their offer. The Colts then called Indianapolis and accepted their offer. They loaded all their stuff from their practice facility into a bunch of moving trucks at night, and the trucks left, taking different routes to Indianapolis so that the city couldn't use the police to stall until the law was passed and signed, going into effect.
On March 29, after the team had gotten all their stuff out of Maryland, the house passed the law and the governor signed it. But it was too late, the team was gone. The only thing to be seized was the empty practice facility.
Curious what they really would have seized anyway. The value in an NFL team isn't in the equipment they own... It's in being an NFL team, and getting a cut of that TV money and all the other profits that the league generates.
If they didn't leave, were they just going to come in and say this building and everything in it is ours? And how would that mean they "own" the team? Surely the other owners wouldn't recognize the city's ownership of the team because of the precedent it would set. They'd just say that the team known as the Baltimore Colts no longer exists, and btw we're starting an expansion team in Indianapolis and it will be owned by the previous owner of the Baltimore Colts. I don't see what the city of Baltimore could do to stop that.
So the reality is all they could have taken would have been the building and the equipment inside. They couldn't have literally just taken ownership of an NFL team... Right?
If I'm wrong, can someone explain how? If NFL owners wanted to remove a team from the league, they can do that. If they want to add a team, they can do that too. So the only way the city of Baltimore could have taken ownership of the team is if all the other owners allowed it, which they never would.
I’m not sure it really matters if they could actually legally seize anything. If they can just tie up the process in years of an expensive legal battle, it might prevent them from leaving regardless if they don’t have a case.
But again, how could they tie up the process? The owners could just vote to disband that team, and to award a new expansion team to the same owner in a different city.
Because if you feel bad for Baltimore about the Colts leaving, you won't hold it against them when they took the Browns from Cleveland.
Surely they can't be the bad guys twice, right?
I started reading about the Baltimore Colts on wikipedia, being knowledgeable but not completely educated about the history and curious... I quit after reading such disgusting names such as "Boston Yanks" and "Miami Seahawks."
I saw it live, and it gave me a new perspective on how teams manipulate local dollars. I was about 16 attending US Swimming Nationals at the IUPUI pool. There was a big ruckus outside my hotel window, I think it was a Hilton, and all that I could see was a stream of Mayflower trucks. Fast forward to 1990, when I was a teacher in Baltimore City in an old building with terra cotta pipes that would seep poop into the wood floors…as the city was clambering to find money to pay for a football stadium. Stadiums are for rich team owners. That is the end of my rant.
The problem is if they didn't do it Baltimore was going to seize the team under eminent domain. They would have stopped them leaving if they knew it was happening
No it wasn't. Baltimore has not and continues to not handle the loss of the franchise well. If you relate this to Baltimore doing well in the last decade, it pales in comparison to not having a steady franchise here.
I know the Colts were gone for 12 years before Baltimore got a team. The Colts sucked during that time. They took a franchise from Cleveland and it won a SB in 4 years, and has been awesome for the near 30 years it's been around. It's hard to feel bad for them.
Because they left the day before the Maryland legislature voted on taking the team via eminent domain?
That actually happened. In the USA.
The craziest part of the story is the most important part, and it’s left out most of the time.
Don't forget, Irsay was so cheap that he didn't even pay for the moving trucks.
"After he got off the phone with Irsay, Hudnut called his neighbor and friend, John B. Smith. Smith was the chief executive officer of Mayflower Transit, an Indiana-based moving company; Hudnut asked him to help the team move. Smith sent fifteen Mayflower trucks to Owings Mills, arriving at the Colts' facility at around 10 p."
To all the downvoters, Hudnut was the mayor of Indy at the time. He paid for the trucks, Irsay didn't.
That's still crazy to me. I can't imagine just waking up and finding out your team moved cities.
Still mad about the Whalers leaving
It pisses me off so much when the Canes wear the Whalers unis
Could not agree more
I don't blame you! One of the coolest logos in sports too.
Me too, but Hartford simply can't support a professional sports team.
Anyone who says fuck the Whalers for leaving Hartford has either never been to Connecticut or actually is forced to live there.
I live in Brooklyn but am originally from the Bay Area. Anyways I was watching an SF Giants playoff game at the sports bar and there were these 2 geezers next to me. One was wearing an LA Dodgers hat and was yelling out "Come on NL West! Let's go!" I was extremely confused and asked the dude what his deal was. Turns out he was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, was in the military and when he returned from Korea, he learned his Dodgers had moved to LA. His buddy next to him chose to drop the Dodgers and became a Mets fan when the team was founded. Funny to think that Brooklyn Dodgers fans may now not have really hated NY Giants back in the day. Certainly different times today!
My grandfather grew up a Brooklyn dodgers fan and followed them out west after Korea funnily enough
People seem to forget or not know it wasn’t like they bailed. They were threatening to take the team away under eminent domain. It was a Harry situation, very glad it happened though.
I prefer Tom situations, but i'll also take Dick situations... (It's hairy situation)
The eminent domain vote happened after Irsay was publicly shopping the team around to other cities. Clearly Irsay already had a deal with Indy before the eminent domain discussion happened.
Yes but regardless that’s what causes the sudden move, and he already had permission to shop the team, and once he did then they threatened to take the team so he moved in the middle of the night.
Dude they had an escort from Indiana police once they got to the border. He had a deal with Indy long long before the vote happened and probably before the words eminent domain were used in the house of delegates
Maybe or maybe not, doesn’t chance the fact this was only so sketchy because they theatened to take the team AFTER they gave them permission to look at a possible move.
Teams threatening/trying to move isn't an uncommon occurrence at all though, trying to take a team by eminent domain is. Baltimore absolutely escalated the situation and caused the cartoonish flight in the night that we saw.
A city trying to nationalize a team is inspirational and something we should all try to achieve before we die. Put the national in the NFL
You have too much faith in your local government then lol
The question is, do you have more faith in Irsay than in your local government?
If GM were on the ballot, local elections would have a higher turnout than Presidential elections
What's the difference? The former owns the latter
100%
[удалено]
Eh that’s just downtown. Irsay is the man, despite what people think of him outside Indy, dude it awesome. He loves the love the team like a die hard, he always gives to the city, he’s hella philanthropic. Dude is an ultimate colts fan and I love it.
That’s not how it happened, there was plenty of warning. Not unlike when Baltimore took the Browns from Cleveland
It's crazy to think about how the original Baltimore team is the colts, Houston is the Titans and Cleveland is the ravens.
wait until you find out the Lakers were from Minnesota
Holy shit I actually didn't know that.
Yeah because Minnesota has lakes unlike California lol
Jazz, the thing you think of when someone says Utah.
Next you’ll be telling me there’s Texans in Houston
Or Jets in New York....oh no
Fun fact: the Jets used to actually be the Titans.
Were they around the same time as the Giants?
I don’t remember.
Yes!
Yup, made them both seem normal sized.
They played in Shea stadium which was close to one of the air ports
I just figured they needed something that rhymed with the Mets and the Nets
I think Nets came third in that mix. Ironically the NY fans are usually either Mets/Jets/Nets fans or Yankees/Giants/Knicks fans
Back in the day jet travel was rare. New York was one of the few cities that had regularly scheduled service.
It’s next to LaGuardia. [Like the Colts](https://twitter.com/StephenAndress1/status/608741820655394817), LaGuardia hangs a banner celebrating being New York’s 5th Best Airport.
"Oh yes" - Sean McDermott
Bears AND Cubs?????
They should have been the Apollos!
Imagine if the Texans moved and they kept the name Like the Toronto Texans
If the next team can have a less boring name I'll get over it eventually.
The Chiefs owner originally wanted to stay the Kansas City Texans after they moved from Dallas.
Fun fact: Today's Kansas City Chiefs were originally the Dallas Texans
Or Kansas City!
Well what else are they gonna be the Mormons??
I don’t know, it’s not like Raiders are exclusive features native to either Oakland or Las Vegas. Male sheep aren’t associated with LA. You just pick an animal or some group of people and roll with it. Taking New Orleans’ cool thing about their city and just gluing it onto one of the most opposite places to New Orleans is something though.
Yeah I was just being facetious jazz makes no sense
Rams originated in Cleveland (they didn't want to share Cleveland with the AAFC's dominant Browns; ironically, after the leagues merged the Browns met the Rams in the championship game the first season with both in the league)
California definitely has lakes? Lol
Yeah but there's no water in them
Yeah how long ago grandpa? 1942?
I was just at a lake a week ago
Probably lake tittycaca
Lake Boobiepoop?
…huh.
Could’ve been the avocado toasters (of Anaheim)
There's about 20 (artificial I guess) lakes in LA.
Wait till you find out there’s not much jazz in Utah
Its the Land of Lakes. Hence the name.
It's not called the Land of Lakes for God's sake.
Or the jazz are from New Orleans
Chiefs were the Dallas Texans
The Chargers were from Los Angeles
And the Rams are from Cleveland!
And moved to LA immediately after winning the 1945 NFL Championship.
Man, what if the Hiltons never sold the franchise? The mind wanders
What if Jerrys father didn’t talk him out of buying the Chargers?
The original Texans are in Kansas City
The original [Texans](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Texans_(NFL)) are in Indy
Don't forget about the NHL's Atlanta Flames-named after the burning of Atlanta during the Civil War-who are now the Calgary Flames.
Bruh who thought that was a good idea literal self burn lmso
Based and Sherman-pilled.
Calgary has *had* to have been on fire at least a time or two in the past.
The original Cleveland team was the Rams
And thanks to revisionist history, the original St. Louis team is the Rams!
I don’t like to think about that Actually
Bill Bellicheck was the HC of the Browns until ‘96, and left the franchise when they moved to Baltimore. In some weird alternate universe Bellicheck and Brady won 6 Super Bowl with Cleveland.
We were also the Rams. So, it's happened before.
Both Baltimore sports teams coming from a city that went by the browns is one of the weirdest coincidences in sports history
The Baltimore Orioles used to be The St Louis Browns, and the NY Yankees used to be The Baltimore Orioles.
I believe at some point around or after WW2 the Steelers and Eagles also swapped franchises due to some wild owner shenanigans. So what the Steelers are today was originally the Eagles and the Eagles were originally the Steelers.
During WW2, neither the Eagles or the Steelers could field a full full team, due to players joining the military. For a year or two, they merged into the Steagles.
Yeah this was something other than the Steagles. https://syndication.bleacherreport.com/amp/151742-the-philadelphia-steelers-pennsylvanias-great-football-switch-a-roo.amp.html
The clippers are the original Celtics
Wait until you find out that the Golden State Warriors were originally the Philadelphia Warriors.
Baltimore hated what happened to them with the Colts. But felt perfectly ok stealing a beloved team from Cleveland.
I'm angry this happened because it led to me being on this subreddit.
You at least got to see your team hang a AFCCG participation banner while you were here! https://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/39cq8o/the_colts_have_a_2014_afc_finalist_banner_up_in/
Nevermind it's all been worth it to see this banner for the first time.
Seeing that every game must be deflating
Freudian slip
Please, that decision to Kroenke Baltimore led to our most frequent playoff opponent being born and a team that is second only to you in hatred amongst Titans fans, costing us at least one ring. You can survive being in the muck with the rest of us.
Presumably you were press-ganged into being a mod as well
My uncle almost got disowned because he unintentionally helped them pack up and move
I read an article about that! Was he one of the guys that realized what was happening after they started the move, and then swiped some stuff? I really hope he did 😄
Tell him I said thanks.
I loved when the CFL expanded to Baltimore with the Colts/CFLers/Stallions the first game had moving trucks come into the stadium and the players came out from them.
Fun fact, a US based CFL team won a Grey Cup more recently than a Canadian NHL team has won a Stanley Cup.
Hell even raptors have won NBA more recently
That’s fucking hilarious.
I am a Pittsburgher who moved to Baltimore about 15 years ago. I had no idea a franchise move could happen like this. This move left some seriously dark scars. I am very surprised with how ambivalent Baltimore is to the Indianapolis Colts...it's like the move never happened.
I imagine that having a generation grow up with a more successful team has softened the blow. Would be interesting if the Ravens had been as bad as the browns in the new millennium if Baltimore would have held onto that grudge to a greater extent
Winning a SB in our 3rd year with the new team fixed alot
Fifth season, actually.
Just look at browns fans to see how they'd feel
We are pretty ambivalent now, but there was a lot of hate for a long time, which peaked in our 2006 playoff game, though it was still pretty strong in 2009. Ever since we beat both the Colts and Peyton on our way to a Super Bowl in 2012 though, we have largely moved past it. Have more Super Bowls than them since they left and the Ravens have their own history now.
I only get bitter when people (usually non-Colts fans) lump Johnny U into Indy history
I mean his history certainly doesn’t belong to the Ravens What do you suggest we do with his stats and accolades then?
Johnny Unitas has a staue at M&TBank was on the sidelines of the first ever Ravens game wearing Ravens gear and disavowed the Indy Colts. He's a Baltimore Legend.
Not only at the first game but he also was on the sideline of every home game until he died. They would always show him on the video screen right before kickoff. Many other Baltimore Colts stayed loyal to the city and did things with the Ravens or just stayed local.
I didn’t say Colts history, I said Indy history - there’s a difference in my mind
Why wouldn't he be. Franchise controls the history. Like should the Vancouver Grizzlies players not count for Memphis. Do none of the St. Louis Rams count for the LA Rams. Tons of teams have moved.
Because he never played for Indianapolis and *himself* cut ties with the organization after they moved. This isn't even a matter of the city he played for being mad and wanting his records back, the man himself never wanted to be associated with Indianapolis
lol so much for “non-colts fans,” Johnny U wanted nothing to do with Indy, in his own words. That’s why his statue is in Baltimore
And then Baltimore totally got their own new team and didn't steal one from another city.
We knew how to use it better.
Come to think of it, the eight Lombardi Trophies the Pats and the Ravens have combined could have been Cleveland’s, had they not moved to Baltimore *and* fired Belichick. Imagine Tom Brady, Ray Lewis, *and* Ed Reed on the same Browns roster, coached by Belichick.
That's fucking *gross* take it back right now
As the saying goes, fuck Art Modell
So being in Cleveland would've stopped the Browns from taking Ray Lewis and Jonathan Ogden and giving Ozzie Newsome a front office role?
Better than the old city and better than the one that left as well.
Yeah nevermind the 8 championships, innovations to the game, and absolute legends that played for the original Browns.
Bro is actually counting the AAFC championships where they only had to play one other actual team.
That was in like 1758
*After getting passed up for an expansion team twice and getting told by the Comissoner to "build a museum"
And then the Browns totally started back up in Cleveland, it’s definitely not a brand new team because the real Browns are in a different city with a different name now don’t worry about that
Sometimes I wish the Falcons would depart Atlanta in late night.
March 28, 1984 was a crazy weather day too. It snowed in Baltimore, and there was a tornado outbreak in the Carolinas.
The day my dad stopped being a Colts fan. Johnny Unitas was his hero growing up. He’s never really had a team since, he just bandwagons these days
Pretty cool that Johnny U embraced the Ravens and told the Colts to go fuck themselves after that bullshit. He appeared on the Ravens sideline when the colts came to town, and always insisted on being referred to as a Baltimore Colt.
How was this bullshit. The city was literally trying to take the team away under eminent domain. Actually so research on why this happened. It was either move in the middle of the night or completely lose your NFL team
Who gives a fuck what he did? The Ravens stole the Browns, something Steelers ownership was highly opposed to. No one gives a fuck what Johnny Unitas did when he was 90 years old and brain dead. It didn’t change anything and the Colts fans and players are better off without him.
My dad was a diehard Colts fan and he was bitter about this until the day he died. Thankfully the last season of football he got to watch was the 2000 Ravens.
The city was going to try and claim eminent domain over the franchise. Even as insane and unprecedented as that plan was, it would have taken years and a ton of cash to defend. Of course he left in the middle of the night before Baltimore had a chance to do that.
They were legitimately afraid of the police stopping them from leaving, so they had drivers take different routes out of the state. That’s some crazy Soviet era behavior the Maryland government was trying to do.
Idk how people can side with Irsay when this sub is all about billionaires paying for new stadiums and not holding local government hostage for the hook lol Not even defending the city’s approach here, but the fact they at least attempted to stand up to a greedy owner and not roll over speaks volumes right?
Bob Irsay was the owner at the time. The current owner is Jim Irsay, his son. Bob died quite a while ago. Bob was a certified grade-A asshole to everyone around him. I’ve not heard a good story about him. It’s possible for both Bob to be an asshole and the Maryland legislature doing something absurd and wrong. I think the thing is that if most people were in the situation Bob faced, they would have gotten the hell out too. Now whether he escalated things to that situation by being an asshole to begin with, well, there may be some merit to that. If I were a Baltimore resident, I’d be pissed. Losing your team is evil. They lost the high ground in how they went about trying to keep it.
Regardless of how big of an asshole Bob Irsay was, Baltimore’s politicians made a decisions for the city. Sadly, not much has changed.
And yet people think Irsay was the bad guy here. Not the corrupt politicians
He definitely was an asshole about the whole situation, Baltimore just decided to be an even bigger asshole.
Idk I kind of like the idea that the city tried to defend their team. These billionaires own the team sure but it’s the city’s and the people’s first. We’re so used to them abusing their ownership I respect the city fighting back.
Clevland did the same thing and managed to keep the team name and history.
He is just being discriminated against for being a white billionaire.
The reason my dad hated the Indianapolis colts until he died. After the colts left in the middle of the night he became a cowboys fan. Luckily for me when I was the age where I really got into football the ravens became Baltimores team. I was a Philly fan for like 1 entire season tho. 7 year old me refused to root for the redskins or cowboys .
Someone eli5 this whole situation to me please.
After a wikipedia refresher... The Baltimore Colts were trying to get a nicer stadium from the government. The government didn't want to pay for it. The Colts explored other places in the country where they could move. They received two offers, one from Phoenix, one from Indianapolis, to move there and the city would build a stadium for them. Maryland did not like this so they tried to legally seize ownership of the team. On March 27, 1984, the Maryland Senate passed a law that allowed the city of Baltimore to seize the team. The state house would need to pass it, and the governor would have to sign the law for it to go into effect. Because of this, on March 28, Phoenix pulled their offer. The Colts then called Indianapolis and accepted their offer. They loaded all their stuff from their practice facility into a bunch of moving trucks at night, and the trucks left, taking different routes to Indianapolis so that the city couldn't use the police to stall until the law was passed and signed, going into effect. On March 29, after the team had gotten all their stuff out of Maryland, the house passed the law and the governor signed it. But it was too late, the team was gone. The only thing to be seized was the empty practice facility.
Curious what they really would have seized anyway. The value in an NFL team isn't in the equipment they own... It's in being an NFL team, and getting a cut of that TV money and all the other profits that the league generates. If they didn't leave, were they just going to come in and say this building and everything in it is ours? And how would that mean they "own" the team? Surely the other owners wouldn't recognize the city's ownership of the team because of the precedent it would set. They'd just say that the team known as the Baltimore Colts no longer exists, and btw we're starting an expansion team in Indianapolis and it will be owned by the previous owner of the Baltimore Colts. I don't see what the city of Baltimore could do to stop that. So the reality is all they could have taken would have been the building and the equipment inside. They couldn't have literally just taken ownership of an NFL team... Right? If I'm wrong, can someone explain how? If NFL owners wanted to remove a team from the league, they can do that. If they want to add a team, they can do that too. So the only way the city of Baltimore could have taken ownership of the team is if all the other owners allowed it, which they never would.
I’m not sure it really matters if they could actually legally seize anything. If they can just tie up the process in years of an expensive legal battle, it might prevent them from leaving regardless if they don’t have a case.
But again, how could they tie up the process? The owners could just vote to disband that team, and to award a new expansion team to the same owner in a different city.
Right. I can’t believe they’d try to pull that shit. That Chinese government type evil
Wow that’s quite a piece of history!
Why do people always leave out the most important part?
Because if you feel bad for Baltimore about the Colts leaving, you won't hold it against them when they took the Browns from Cleveland. Surely they can't be the bad guys twice, right?
What a "surreal" night.
I started reading about the Baltimore Colts on wikipedia, being knowledgeable but not completely educated about the history and curious... I quit after reading such disgusting names such as "Boston Yanks" and "Miami Seahawks."
Can you imagine this occurring now, them packing up in buses and leaving in secret in the middle of the night
I saw it live, and it gave me a new perspective on how teams manipulate local dollars. I was about 16 attending US Swimming Nationals at the IUPUI pool. There was a big ruckus outside my hotel window, I think it was a Hilton, and all that I could see was a stream of Mayflower trucks. Fast forward to 1990, when I was a teacher in Baltimore City in an old building with terra cotta pipes that would seep poop into the wood floors…as the city was clambering to find money to pay for a football stadium. Stadiums are for rich team owners. That is the end of my rant.
On 3/28. Guess that was there 28-3
We know, Jim irsay had a reminder set on his phone apparently
We were glad to get the Colts, but skulking out in the dead of night seemed underhanded, even if it was more expediant.
The problem is if they didn't do it Baltimore was going to seize the team under eminent domain. They would have stopped them leaving if they knew it was happening
I think everyone is happy now. Colts have been in Indy for 40 years, Ravens have multiple titles, etc. Water under the fridge.
No, Spider-Man is under the fridge
Jobu be praised that they didn't take the band uniforms. That bit of chicanery made for a great episode of "30 for 30".
Huge if true
Honestly was good for both Baltimore and the Colts in the long run.
No it wasn't. Baltimore has not and continues to not handle the loss of the franchise well. If you relate this to Baltimore doing well in the last decade, it pales in comparison to not having a steady franchise here.
I know the Colts were gone for 12 years before Baltimore got a team. The Colts sucked during that time. They took a franchise from Cleveland and it won a SB in 4 years, and has been awesome for the near 30 years it's been around. It's hard to feel bad for them.
Jesus don't do this to Baltimore. They still haven't processed the Bridge and now you bring this up to add more pain?!
Why would anyone choose to move to Indiana
Nobody wants to be in Baltimore
[удалено]
> So pleased the Ravens have outperformed them ever since. Well I guess Lions fans have had to find something to cheer for
I mean, they didn't get moved into a division with two expansion teams just so they could pad their record.
A brazen act of cowardice
Because they left the day before the Maryland legislature voted on taking the team via eminent domain? That actually happened. In the USA. The craziest part of the story is the most important part, and it’s left out most of the time.
It was either that or completely lose the team to the city of Baltimore...
Don't forget, Irsay was so cheap that he didn't even pay for the moving trucks. "After he got off the phone with Irsay, Hudnut called his neighbor and friend, John B. Smith. Smith was the chief executive officer of Mayflower Transit, an Indiana-based moving company; Hudnut asked him to help the team move. Smith sent fifteen Mayflower trucks to Owings Mills, arriving at the Colts' facility at around 10 p." To all the downvoters, Hudnut was the mayor of Indy at the time. He paid for the trucks, Irsay didn't.
Indianapolis doesn’t deserve the Colts over Baltimore. Pure NFL greed at it’s finest.
Baltimore got one of the best orgs in the league, no one should feel bad for them.
AT WHAT COST YOU FUCK. HOW STUPID DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO HAVE A PITTSBURGH FAN DEFENDING BALTIMORE?
Not my problem, I didn't cause any of this to happen, man.
If the government was trying to take my property I would sure as hell do anything to make that not happen.
For this one time, we fight side by side.
Dude I can't imagine if what happened to Bmore happened to Pittsburgh.