On This Day in History, 1984 – a day that will live in infamy for Baltimore Colts fans – Bob Irsay packed up the team into moving vans and carted them off to Indianapolis in the dead of night. Full sordid details here. For many die-hard fans, the Colts were heroes. And Irsay? “Arch-villain” would be too kind.
Led by quarterback Johnny Unitas, the Colts had been the best team in the NFL in the late 1950s. They had come to embody the working class spirit of Baltimore. Players lived among the fans, worked alongside them in the off-season, and performed with evident pride in their adopted city. Once Irsay purchased the team, the franchise began its downward spiral. After winning Super Bowl V in 1971, the Colts had a few good years. But by the late 1970s, the franchise was bad. So bad in fact that when future Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway was drafted number one overall by the Colts in 1983, he refused to report to the team, threatening to play baseball for the New York Yankees instead. As a result, the Colts were forced to trade Elway to the Denver Broncos.
And the rest, as they say, is NFL history.
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