Twenty-five years ago — Sunday, Dec. 18, 1983, a date that will live in infamy — the Baltimore Colts played their last football game here. They beat Houston, if anybody still cares. Less than three months later, they were gone, kidnapped to Indianapolis on a miserable night when Robert Irsay sold his soul to the devil.
In a week when many are remembering the 50th anniversary of the Colts’ most glorious moment, the 1958 Sudden Death championship win over the New York Giants, this one sneaked up on a lot of us. The Earth spins and spins again. Great triumph 50 years ago, great loss 25 years later, practically to the day.
After all this time, the memory still hurts. It hurts Baltimore, because a generation of us never got over Irsay’s sucker punch. But it should hurt the National Football League, as well. It exposed to the entire country the league’s worship of the dollar above all, and its willingness to give the back of its hand to any community that failed to worship without financial boundaries its hometown teams.
Long before Tom Cruise shouted “Show me the money” in “Jerry Maguire,” the NFL made the sentiment its own. Show them the money to build new ballparks, with luxury suites and personal seat licenses. Show them the money for ticket prices beyond imagining. Show them the money, or say goodbye to your team.
Around the Baltimore area these days, fans have gathered to embrace some of the Colts from 50 years ago. You know what’s remarkable? Nobody has to talk about these guys with their full names. You mention Gino, you mention Artie, you mention Johnny U or Big Daddy or Spats, no last names are needed. A kind of generational shorthand has evolved.
But, 25 years after those 1983 Colts left, you look at the old roster and have to shake loose the cobwebs of memory.
Glorious as the Colts had been 25 years earlier, they had now entered the heart of their full catastrophe. By now, Irsay had not only wrecked the team but was openly shopping it around. There were nights when we turned on our TV sets and saw him in some other city, pitching his team to the highest bidders.
In 1981, Irsay’s creation won two games out of 16. A year later, in a mercifully strike-shortened season, they won one game and lost eight. The handwriting was on the wall. The team was so bad, and the organization so clearly dysfunctional, that when they drafted quarterback John Elway out of Stanford, he refused to come here.
Of course, they did have quarterback Art Schlichter, drafted on Irsay’s insistence. Schlichter got suspended for a year for gambling.
The Colts had their moments in ’83. They finished 7-and-9. Curtis Dickey and Randy McMillan ran well. But nobody was confusing Mike Pagel with John Unitas, or even with Bert Jones.
And nobody was confusing the crowds at Memorial Stadium — such as they were — with the sellouts of years past.
Twenty-five years ago tonight, as his ballclub packed up their gear, Irsay already was plotting his next move. He’d been holding discussions with Phoenix. Then, in mid-February, he toured the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis.
At City Hall, a frantic William Donald Schaefer pressed Irsay about his plans. “Don, Don,” Irsay told the mayor, “I’m not moving anywhere.” Schaefer, who still called Irsay “Mr. Irsay,” made the mistake of taking him at his word, right up to the moment he turned on his radio that snowy March night and heard the Mayflower moving vans were slipping out of town.
By then, state legislators in Annapolis had awakened to the real possibility of losing the club. They talked about eminent domain laws that would force the club to stay in Baltimore.
Too late, too late.
The Colts were gone, and a generation found itself wandering in the pro football desert. But there was a flip side to the sadness. Those old Colts, the guys from the ’50s and ’60s, but also the Ted Marchibroda era, like Lydell Mitchell and Bruce Laird and others, helped rally the city when we went after a new team.
And we had years to nurture our memories, to fill in the blanks. In other cities, there’s always new blood arriving, new games. Maybe you don’t fully appreciate what you have. Time marches on.
The loss of the Colts made us all realize how special their time had been. When they joined us in the fight for a new team, they were saying: “You know how much that time meant to you? Well, it meant the same to us.” After Irsay, that meant a lot.
So today we note the date on the calendar, and move on. Next week, there’s a better game to recall.
