November 7, 2024 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, the team broke hearts and left its city under the cover of night in moving vans - but the memory of the Baltimore Colts, and legendary quarterback Johnny Unitas, burns bright in the hearts of its fans.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American Stories, and we love bringing you
stories about history and about sports, and today we bring
you a combination of the two. Here's Mike Gibbons, director
Emeritus and historian at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum,
also located in Baltimore, to tell us more about the
legendary Baltimore football team that helped the NFL become what
(00:33):
it is today.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Today we're going to be talking about the Baltimore Cults,
one of the NFL's storied franchises, a team that helped
put the NFL on the map for a variety of reasons,
but also helped to give Baltimore a new identity. During
World War II, Baltimore was one of the industrial centers
of the United States, producing ships and aircraft for the
(01:01):
war effort. But at the conclusion of World War Two
in nineteen forty five, the industries really lost their market.
They didn't have to produce ships and aircraft in the
numbers that they did during World War II, and so
many of the plants in and around this area closed
down and Baltimore lost its manufacturing capability. The town gradually
(01:27):
slipped and declined and became known really as nothing more
than a pit stop between Philadelphia and Washington, d C.
The Baltimore Cults arrived on the scene in nineteen fifty three,
and though in the beginning they were not very good
at all, it gave Baltimoreans and Marylanders something to look
(01:48):
forward to on Sunday afternoons in the fall. The team
in nineteen fifty six had started to get a little
bit better under head coach we Bu Bank, and he
started a quarterback by the name of George Shaw. In
the fourth game of nineteen fifty six, Shaw was injured
(02:09):
and to replace him came a rookie quarterback by the
name of Johnny Unitas. Johnny went to the University of Louisville,
where he was a star quarterback, and he was drafted
in nineteen fifty five by the Pittsburgh Steelers, but he
lost out in a competition for quarterback to a fellow
(02:30):
who would later show up on the Baltimore landscape, a
guy by the name of Ted Marshibroda. So Unitas played
semi pro ball in his hometown of Pittsburgh and waited
for a phone call that ultimately came before the start
of training camp in nineteen fifty six, that call came
from Colts general manager Don Kellett. For the price of
(02:54):
a ninety cent long distance phone call, Kellett was able
to secure Unitis and bring him to Baltimore. He played
well enough in training camp and in exhibition games to
make the roster and was George Shaw's back up. So
now we go forward to Game four. The Colts did
(03:16):
not play well under their rookie quarterback, who threw an
interception for a touchdown return, and the Colts fumbled four times,
losing badly to the Chicago Bears that day. But over
the last eight games in nineteen fifty six, with Unitis
at the helm the team went four and four and
there was hope for a brighter future. I went to
(03:40):
my first game in nineteen fifty seven, the home opener
against the Detroit Lions. I was, let's say eleven ten
years old at the time, and what a spectacle it
was to go out there on a Sunday afternoon, beautiful day.
And I remember squinting my eyes because the Colts wore
white hell helmets and you could see the sun glittered
(04:02):
off of those helmets. The team the Colts faced in
that home opener Unitas's first home opener, by the way
as a starter were the world champion Detroit Lions, while
the Colts, under Unitas's leadership and strong arm, put a
lickan omen Detroit that day, winning the game and propelling
to a pretty good season for the Colts. They finished
(04:23):
with a record of seven and five with a lot
of burgeoning stars, guys like Gino Marquetti, Lenny Moore, Raymond Berry, Unitas,
already Donovan, all future Hall of famers. There they were
in Baltimore, and we knew that we had something special.
In nineteen fifty eight, the Colts went nine to three
(04:44):
and captured the Western Conference crown that took them to
the championship game at Yankee Stadium in New York, where
the Colts would face the Giants. Webew Bank in the
visitor's locker room Yankee Stadium that day, gave a pregame
speech to his team, referencing every one of them, walking
(05:08):
around to all thirty three players, addressing them and saying,
you wouldn't be in the NFL if it wasn't for
your Baltimore Colts. You really never had it together until
you got here. So go out there, play your best
and give it all You've got. The nineteen fifty eight
(05:31):
game is often referred to as the greatest game ever played,
and the reason is Johnny Andiitis and what he was
able to do to pull out the game in what
turned out to be the NFL's first sudden death overtime.
Late in the fourth quarter, with the Colts trailing by
three points, Unitis gets the ball back on his own
(05:52):
fourteen yard line, eighty six yards from the Giant's goal line,
and Johnny at that moment, invented the two minute drill.
He took his team down to the thirteen yard line
with about ten seconds left on the clock. Steve Meyer,
the placekicker, came in kicked a nineteen yard field goal
(06:13):
to tie the game and send the game into overtime.
In overtime, the Colts stopped the Giants on a contested,
controversial placement of the ball. The Giants swear that they
got a first down on Frank Giffert's third down run,
but the referees said, nope, you didn't make it, and
they punted to the Colts, and the Colts, under Johnny Andiitis,
(06:36):
took the team down the field and into the end zone,
Alan Amici scoring the game winning TD for a twenty
three to seventeen victory. So that game was witnessed by
the largest audience ever to see an NFL game on television.
TV was still pretty new at that time, and the
high drama that played out that afternoon was never forgot
(07:00):
gotten by the fans who watched it. The game is
often said to be responsible for putting the NFL on
the map. It certainly put Johnny Unitis and his Baltimore
Colts on the map. They went on to become one
of the premier franchises in the history of the league.
(07:20):
In Unitas's sixteen seasons as a starting quarterback from nineteen
fifty seven through nineteen seventy two, they suffered only one
losing season, and that was their last season, nineteen seventy two,
John's last season in Baltimore. But up to them, they
had the best record in the NFL for fifteen years
(07:40):
under Unitis, and they were tied with the Cleveland Browns
for most wins over that period in the NFL. So
a pretty successful team.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Now.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Other things to think about when we're talking Baltimore Colts
football is a series of firsts that took place at
Baltimore's Memorial Stadium, better known as the largest outdoor insane asylum.
I remember going to my third game in nineteen sixty.
My father and I got season tickets and we sat
(08:14):
in the end zone where the Colts came out for
pregame introductions. And I'll tell you when Unitis took the
field and was introduced to the crowd in the closed
end of this horseshoe shaped stadium, it was the loudest
sound I've ever heard to this day, the biggest noise
I've ever heard that stadium, just by its architecture and
(08:38):
by the enthusiasm of the fans. Six two hundred and
thirty eight every weekend that they played just was almost
unimaginable to comprehend.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
And we've been listening to Mike Gibbons tell the story
not just of the Baltimore cults, but in the end
a story of Baltimore itself, especially post World War Two.
And by the way, Mike Gibbons is the director emeritus
and historian at the Babe Bruth Birthplace and Museum, which
is in Baltimore. And by the way, if you're ever there,
go when we come back more of the story of
(09:12):
the Baltimore Colts of Johnny Unitas and more with a
sports historian of the city of Baltimore. Here on our
American story and we're back with our American Stories and
(09:42):
the story of the Baltimore Colts, the football team that
helped put Baltimore and the NFL in the spotlight. Here's
Mike Gibbons again to tell us about this historic team
and the presence that they had in the world of
professional football.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Dence Lombardi, from the Green Bay Packers, legendary Hall of
Fame coach, said that he hated coming to Memorial Stadium,
the worst place on the road for his team to visit.
And it wasn't just the sound. The Colts had cheerleaders.
They were the first team in the NFL to have cheerleaders,
they were the second to have a marching band, and
they had a great fight song which the town just loved,
(10:22):
and every time the band played it, we all stood
as though it was our national anthem. The Colts had
a mascot, a live horse, Dixie, who with Dixie's rider,
would go around the outside of the playing field every
time the team scored, and this really pretty much unnerved
the opposing teams as they came to Baltimore and contested
(10:45):
the Colts, and that's one of the reasons we think
that the Colts had such a great record over all
the years. Another profound memory for me was nineteen fifty nine,
So the year after the Colts had beaten the Giants
in the greatest game ever played in New York, the
Colts and the Giants repeated the exercise by playing the
(11:05):
NFL Championship game in Baltimore. And I was there with
my dad. The Colts win the game and fans ran
onto the field. Everybody was so excited. They didn't know
what to do. And I kept saying to my dad,
let me go down there, and he's like, no, you're
not going down there. You might get hurt. What they
were trying to do was to dissemble the goal post
(11:28):
down in the closed end of the playing field, not
really understanding that the NFL had changed from a wooden
gold post the year before to an all metal gold
post in nineteen fifty nine. So they were able to
knock the goal post down, but not much more than that.
Let me take you up to nineteen sixty five. The
(11:50):
Colts and the Packers were vying for the league championship.
The Colts had won it the year before nineteen sixty four,
and now they're vying with Green Bay for the conference title.
In nineteen sixty five, the teams finished the regular season
with identical ten to three to one marks, and that
forced a playoff game in Green Bay, and the Colts
(12:14):
had it out there at a severe disadvantage. The Colts
number one quarterback Johnny and Iidas, had been injured earlier
in the year. His replacement, Gary Quaso, was injured in
the second to last game of the year, and that
forced running back Tom Maddy to come in and play quarterback.
Tom had played quarterback at Ohio State, but it was
(12:37):
a running offense and so they didn't throw the ball
a lot, and Tom was not an elite passer by
any means. But Tommy came in and the Colts took
a lead of seven to nothing early on in the game,
and as the game came to a conclusion the fourth
quarter winding down, the Colts were clinging to a ten
(12:58):
to seven lead over the Green Bay Packers, and at
that point Packer kicker Don Chandler came in. He booted
a field goal that was ruled good by the referees
even though it appeared to sail wide. It was a
high kick, went way up over the goalpost and seemed
to veer to the left, but the referees allowed the points,
(13:22):
thereby tying the game, and the Packers went on to
win in the second overtime game ever played. The first,
of course, the Colts participated in as well. In nineteen
fifty eight in New York. Now we move up to
nineteen seventy one, the Colts under Unitis make another postseason appearance,
(13:44):
losing to the Miami Dolphins, but nevertheless they made it
as they headed into the nineteen seventy two season. Problem
with this team at that point was that they were
getting old. A lot of the veteran players were just
kind of running out of gas. So it was up
to Unitus to try and carry them forward one more time,
but he couldn't do it. He was replaced about midway
(14:07):
through the season by Marty Damrays. Dom Rays guided the
Colts to a five to nine record that year. In
the last home game, something profound happened and Baltimoreans will
never forget it. The last home game, the Colts were
hosting the Buffalo Bills, not a very good team either.
(14:27):
Midway through the fourth quarter, Domras had taken his squad
to a twenty eight to seven lead over the Bills.
At that point, he was on the field and he
feigned an injury and hopped off the field, and you know,
the head coach said, to united us, get in there,
So Johnny went in. And as that was happening, a
(14:48):
small biplane flew over Memorial Stadium carrying a banner that said, Unitus,
we stand. And the sellout crowd stood as one started
cheering as the fabled legendary Unitis made what many knew
would be his last appearance on Memorial Stadium turf. Unitis
(15:10):
went out, took a snap from center, dropped back, and
threw a sixty seven yard touchdown pass to Eddie Hinton,
and then he ran off the field for the last time.
The crowd sobbing, cheering, just going out of their minds,
having witnessed one of the great moments in Colts and
maybe in NFL history storybook stuff. You just can't make up.
(15:32):
Unitis and many of the veterans were let go or
traded after the seventy two season, and something had happened
after seventy one that was not a good thing for
our Colts. Owner Carol Rosenbloom, one of the greatest in
NFL history, sold his team to Bob Orsay, and Hearsay
was not a good owner, and he brought in a
(15:54):
general manager by the name of Joe Thomas who wanted
to run things his way. And Joe was responsible after
seventy two for cleaning house getting rid of the players.
So the next couple of years seventy three and seventy four,
under Joe Thomas and a variety of head coaches, the
Colts were terrible. But in seventy five they brought in
(16:16):
a guy who Uniteds had dealt with before back in
Pittsburgh when he lost the quarterback job to who would
become the colts new head coach, Ted Marchibroda. So Marchibroda
comes to town. He takes second year quarterback Burt Jones
and says, Bert, let's make this thing go. Jones had
a lot of great players with him and they returned
(16:39):
the Colts to the path of glory, as the team
captured Eastern Conference championships in seventy five, seventy six, and
seventy seven. Unfortunately, they had three postseason berths and lost
them all first two to Pittsburgh in the final one
and historic game at Memorial Stadium to the Oak Raiders,
(17:01):
which the Colts lost to in double overtime thirty seven
to thirty one. I believe that game, played on Christmas
Eve that year, turned out to be the last playoff
game that Baltimore fans would ever see their Colts participate in.
In the summer of nineteen seventy eight, Burt Jones was
hurt in an exhibition game, hurt his shoulder and was
(17:22):
out for a while. Tried to make a comeback and
it just wasn't the same, and the team floundered without
Bert's generalship out there and had a losing season. The
Colts would never have a winning season again, as they
lost six years in a row. The final six years
in Baltimore, they were losers, and that coupled with Iersay's
(17:45):
unpredictable behavior as an owner and Joe Thomas as the
GM just tearing that squad apart, led to a real
drop in attendance. I think the last game they played
in nineteen eighty three, they drew thirty two thousand people.
They remember that they had been drawing sixty thousand sellouts
(18:06):
every game for years, and now they were doing barely
half of that. That led to Hearsay shopping around the
team and ultimately moving them out of town to Indianapolis.
On a dark night in late March nineteen eighty four,
word got out. The people saw that the Colts had
(18:28):
moving vans backed up to their training facility, and Bobby Arsay,
under the cover of darkness, snuck them out of town
as they headed to Indy. Now something profound and good
happened to the city regarding its Baltimore Colts. Shortly after that,
Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaeffer instructed Tom Maddy to go
(18:48):
to Indianapolis and negotiate with Hearsay to try and get
the Baltimore Colts archives to come back to Baltimore. He
was successful, so Schaeffer got a moving van of the
Baltemore Colts archives delivered, and that day we became the
Baldemer Colts Official Archives and Museum. In two thousand and five,
(19:11):
our museum opened another museum called Sports Legends Museum at
Camden Yards, and it featured, among other things, a major
display on the history of the Baltimore Colts. It turned
out to be one of the most popular exhibits in
that museum. People would go in there and get tears
in their eyes just thinking about their great Baltemore Colts teams.
(19:36):
They really, as I said before, were more than just
an NFL franchise. They were part of the fabric of
this community and part of what made the NFL of
what it has become today. We called that exhibit almost religion,
because in fact, that's what the Baltemer Cults were to
the city of Baltimore.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
An excellent job is always the Rabbi and a special
thing thanks to Mike Gibbons, Director Emeritus and historian at
the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, The story of the
Baltimore Cults here on our American Stories
This is our American Stories, and we love bringing you
stories about history and about sports, and today we bring
you a combination of the two. Here's Mike Gibbons, director
Emeritus and historian at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum,
also located in Baltimore, to tell us more about the
legendary Baltimore football team that helped the NFL become what
(00:33):
it is today.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Today we're going to be talking about the Baltimore Cults,
one of the NFL's storied franchises, a team that helped
put the NFL on the map for a variety of reasons,
but also helped to give Baltimore a new identity. During
World War II, Baltimore was one of the industrial centers
of the United States, producing ships and aircraft for the
(01:01):
war effort. But at the conclusion of World War Two
in nineteen forty five, the industries really lost their market.
They didn't have to produce ships and aircraft in the
numbers that they did during World War II, and so
many of the plants in and around this area closed
down and Baltimore lost its manufacturing capability. The town gradually
(01:27):
slipped and declined and became known really as nothing more
than a pit stop between Philadelphia and Washington, d C.
The Baltimore Cults arrived on the scene in nineteen fifty three,
and though in the beginning they were not very good
at all, it gave Baltimoreans and Marylanders something to look
(01:48):
forward to on Sunday afternoons in the fall. The team
in nineteen fifty six had started to get a little
bit better under head coach we Bu Bank, and he
started a quarterback by the name of George Shaw. In
the fourth game of nineteen fifty six, Shaw was injured
(02:09):
and to replace him came a rookie quarterback by the
name of Johnny Unitas. Johnny went to the University of Louisville,
where he was a star quarterback, and he was drafted
in nineteen fifty five by the Pittsburgh Steelers, but he
lost out in a competition for quarterback to a fellow
(02:30):
who would later show up on the Baltimore landscape, a
guy by the name of Ted Marshibroda. So Unitas played
semi pro ball in his hometown of Pittsburgh and waited
for a phone call that ultimately came before the start
of training camp in nineteen fifty six, that call came
from Colts general manager Don Kellett. For the price of
(02:54):
a ninety cent long distance phone call, Kellett was able
to secure Unitis and bring him to Baltimore. He played
well enough in training camp and in exhibition games to
make the roster and was George Shaw's back up. So
now we go forward to Game four. The Colts did
(03:16):
not play well under their rookie quarterback, who threw an
interception for a touchdown return, and the Colts fumbled four times,
losing badly to the Chicago Bears that day. But over
the last eight games in nineteen fifty six, with Unitis
at the helm the team went four and four and
there was hope for a brighter future. I went to
(03:40):
my first game in nineteen fifty seven, the home opener
against the Detroit Lions. I was, let's say eleven ten
years old at the time, and what a spectacle it
was to go out there on a Sunday afternoon, beautiful day.
And I remember squinting my eyes because the Colts wore
white hell helmets and you could see the sun glittered
(04:02):
off of those helmets. The team the Colts faced in
that home opener Unitas's first home opener, by the way
as a starter were the world champion Detroit Lions, while
the Colts, under Unitas's leadership and strong arm, put a
lickan omen Detroit that day, winning the game and propelling
to a pretty good season for the Colts. They finished
(04:23):
with a record of seven and five with a lot
of burgeoning stars, guys like Gino Marquetti, Lenny Moore, Raymond Berry, Unitas,
already Donovan, all future Hall of famers. There they were
in Baltimore, and we knew that we had something special.
In nineteen fifty eight, the Colts went nine to three
(04:44):
and captured the Western Conference crown that took them to
the championship game at Yankee Stadium in New York, where
the Colts would face the Giants. Webew Bank in the
visitor's locker room Yankee Stadium that day, gave a pregame
speech to his team, referencing every one of them, walking
(05:08):
around to all thirty three players, addressing them and saying,
you wouldn't be in the NFL if it wasn't for
your Baltimore Colts. You really never had it together until
you got here. So go out there, play your best
and give it all You've got. The nineteen fifty eight
(05:31):
game is often referred to as the greatest game ever played,
and the reason is Johnny Andiitis and what he was
able to do to pull out the game in what
turned out to be the NFL's first sudden death overtime.
Late in the fourth quarter, with the Colts trailing by
three points, Unitis gets the ball back on his own
(05:52):
fourteen yard line, eighty six yards from the Giant's goal line,
and Johnny at that moment, invented the two minute drill.
He took his team down to the thirteen yard line
with about ten seconds left on the clock. Steve Meyer,
the placekicker, came in kicked a nineteen yard field goal
(06:13):
to tie the game and send the game into overtime.
In overtime, the Colts stopped the Giants on a contested,
controversial placement of the ball. The Giants swear that they
got a first down on Frank Giffert's third down run,
but the referees said, nope, you didn't make it, and
they punted to the Colts, and the Colts, under Johnny Andiitis,
(06:36):
took the team down the field and into the end zone,
Alan Amici scoring the game winning TD for a twenty
three to seventeen victory. So that game was witnessed by
the largest audience ever to see an NFL game on television.
TV was still pretty new at that time, and the
high drama that played out that afternoon was never forgot
(07:00):
gotten by the fans who watched it. The game is
often said to be responsible for putting the NFL on
the map. It certainly put Johnny Unitis and his Baltimore
Colts on the map. They went on to become one
of the premier franchises in the history of the league.
(07:20):
In Unitas's sixteen seasons as a starting quarterback from nineteen
fifty seven through nineteen seventy two, they suffered only one
losing season, and that was their last season, nineteen seventy two,
John's last season in Baltimore. But up to them, they
had the best record in the NFL for fifteen years
(07:40):
under Unitis, and they were tied with the Cleveland Browns
for most wins over that period in the NFL. So
a pretty successful team.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Now.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Other things to think about when we're talking Baltimore Colts
football is a series of firsts that took place at
Baltimore's Memorial Stadium, better known as the largest outdoor insane asylum.
I remember going to my third game in nineteen sixty.
My father and I got season tickets and we sat
(08:14):
in the end zone where the Colts came out for
pregame introductions. And I'll tell you when Unitis took the
field and was introduced to the crowd in the closed
end of this horseshoe shaped stadium, it was the loudest
sound I've ever heard to this day, the biggest noise
I've ever heard that stadium, just by its architecture and
(08:38):
by the enthusiasm of the fans. Six two hundred and
thirty eight every weekend that they played just was almost
unimaginable to comprehend.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
And we've been listening to Mike Gibbons tell the story
not just of the Baltimore cults, but in the end
a story of Baltimore itself, especially post World War Two.
And by the way, Mike Gibbons is the director emeritus
and historian at the Babe Bruth Birthplace and Museum, which
is in Baltimore. And by the way, if you're ever there,
go when we come back more of the story of
(09:12):
the Baltimore Colts of Johnny Unitas and more with a
sports historian of the city of Baltimore. Here on our
American story and we're back with our American Stories and
(09:42):
the story of the Baltimore Colts, the football team that
helped put Baltimore and the NFL in the spotlight. Here's
Mike Gibbons again to tell us about this historic team
and the presence that they had in the world of
professional football.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Dence Lombardi, from the Green Bay Packers, legendary Hall of
Fame coach, said that he hated coming to Memorial Stadium,
the worst place on the road for his team to visit.
And it wasn't just the sound. The Colts had cheerleaders.
They were the first team in the NFL to have cheerleaders,
they were the second to have a marching band, and
they had a great fight song which the town just loved,
(10:22):
and every time the band played it, we all stood
as though it was our national anthem. The Colts had
a mascot, a live horse, Dixie, who with Dixie's rider,
would go around the outside of the playing field every
time the team scored, and this really pretty much unnerved
the opposing teams as they came to Baltimore and contested
(10:45):
the Colts, and that's one of the reasons we think
that the Colts had such a great record over all
the years. Another profound memory for me was nineteen fifty nine,
So the year after the Colts had beaten the Giants
in the greatest game ever played in New York, the
Colts and the Giants repeated the exercise by playing the
(11:05):
NFL Championship game in Baltimore. And I was there with
my dad. The Colts win the game and fans ran
onto the field. Everybody was so excited. They didn't know
what to do. And I kept saying to my dad,
let me go down there, and he's like, no, you're
not going down there. You might get hurt. What they
were trying to do was to dissemble the goal post
(11:28):
down in the closed end of the playing field, not
really understanding that the NFL had changed from a wooden
gold post the year before to an all metal gold
post in nineteen fifty nine. So they were able to
knock the goal post down, but not much more than that.
Let me take you up to nineteen sixty five. The
(11:50):
Colts and the Packers were vying for the league championship.
The Colts had won it the year before nineteen sixty four,
and now they're vying with Green Bay for the conference title.
In nineteen sixty five, the teams finished the regular season
with identical ten to three to one marks, and that
forced a playoff game in Green Bay, and the Colts
(12:14):
had it out there at a severe disadvantage. The Colts
number one quarterback Johnny and Iidas, had been injured earlier
in the year. His replacement, Gary Quaso, was injured in
the second to last game of the year, and that
forced running back Tom Maddy to come in and play quarterback.
Tom had played quarterback at Ohio State, but it was
(12:37):
a running offense and so they didn't throw the ball
a lot, and Tom was not an elite passer by
any means. But Tommy came in and the Colts took
a lead of seven to nothing early on in the game,
and as the game came to a conclusion the fourth
quarter winding down, the Colts were clinging to a ten
(12:58):
to seven lead over the Green Bay Packers, and at
that point Packer kicker Don Chandler came in. He booted
a field goal that was ruled good by the referees
even though it appeared to sail wide. It was a
high kick, went way up over the goalpost and seemed
to veer to the left, but the referees allowed the points,
(13:22):
thereby tying the game, and the Packers went on to
win in the second overtime game ever played. The first,
of course, the Colts participated in as well. In nineteen
fifty eight in New York. Now we move up to
nineteen seventy one, the Colts under Unitis make another postseason appearance,
(13:44):
losing to the Miami Dolphins, but nevertheless they made it
as they headed into the nineteen seventy two season. Problem
with this team at that point was that they were
getting old. A lot of the veteran players were just
kind of running out of gas. So it was up
to Unitus to try and carry them forward one more time,
but he couldn't do it. He was replaced about midway
(14:07):
through the season by Marty Damrays. Dom Rays guided the
Colts to a five to nine record that year. In
the last home game, something profound happened and Baltimoreans will
never forget it. The last home game, the Colts were
hosting the Buffalo Bills, not a very good team either.
(14:27):
Midway through the fourth quarter, Domras had taken his squad
to a twenty eight to seven lead over the Bills.
At that point, he was on the field and he
feigned an injury and hopped off the field, and you know,
the head coach said, to united us, get in there,
So Johnny went in. And as that was happening, a
(14:48):
small biplane flew over Memorial Stadium carrying a banner that said, Unitus,
we stand. And the sellout crowd stood as one started
cheering as the fabled legendary Unitis made what many knew
would be his last appearance on Memorial Stadium turf. Unitis
(15:10):
went out, took a snap from center, dropped back, and
threw a sixty seven yard touchdown pass to Eddie Hinton,
and then he ran off the field for the last time.
The crowd sobbing, cheering, just going out of their minds,
having witnessed one of the great moments in Colts and
maybe in NFL history storybook stuff. You just can't make up.
(15:32):
Unitis and many of the veterans were let go or
traded after the seventy two season, and something had happened
after seventy one that was not a good thing for
our Colts. Owner Carol Rosenbloom, one of the greatest in
NFL history, sold his team to Bob Orsay, and Hearsay
was not a good owner, and he brought in a
(15:54):
general manager by the name of Joe Thomas who wanted
to run things his way. And Joe was responsible after
seventy two for cleaning house getting rid of the players.
So the next couple of years seventy three and seventy four,
under Joe Thomas and a variety of head coaches, the
Colts were terrible. But in seventy five they brought in
(16:16):
a guy who Uniteds had dealt with before back in
Pittsburgh when he lost the quarterback job to who would
become the colts new head coach, Ted Marchibroda. So Marchibroda
comes to town. He takes second year quarterback Burt Jones
and says, Bert, let's make this thing go. Jones had
a lot of great players with him and they returned
(16:39):
the Colts to the path of glory, as the team
captured Eastern Conference championships in seventy five, seventy six, and
seventy seven. Unfortunately, they had three postseason berths and lost
them all first two to Pittsburgh in the final one
and historic game at Memorial Stadium to the Oak Raiders,
(17:01):
which the Colts lost to in double overtime thirty seven
to thirty one. I believe that game, played on Christmas
Eve that year, turned out to be the last playoff
game that Baltimore fans would ever see their Colts participate in.
In the summer of nineteen seventy eight, Burt Jones was
hurt in an exhibition game, hurt his shoulder and was
(17:22):
out for a while. Tried to make a comeback and
it just wasn't the same, and the team floundered without
Bert's generalship out there and had a losing season. The
Colts would never have a winning season again, as they
lost six years in a row. The final six years
in Baltimore, they were losers, and that coupled with Iersay's
(17:45):
unpredictable behavior as an owner and Joe Thomas as the
GM just tearing that squad apart, led to a real
drop in attendance. I think the last game they played
in nineteen eighty three, they drew thirty two thousand people.
They remember that they had been drawing sixty thousand sellouts
(18:06):
every game for years, and now they were doing barely
half of that. That led to Hearsay shopping around the
team and ultimately moving them out of town to Indianapolis.
On a dark night in late March nineteen eighty four,
word got out. The people saw that the Colts had
(18:28):
moving vans backed up to their training facility, and Bobby Arsay,
under the cover of darkness, snuck them out of town
as they headed to Indy. Now something profound and good
happened to the city regarding its Baltimore Colts. Shortly after that,
Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaeffer instructed Tom Maddy to go
(18:48):
to Indianapolis and negotiate with Hearsay to try and get
the Baltimore Colts archives to come back to Baltimore. He
was successful, so Schaeffer got a moving van of the
Baltemore Colts archives delivered, and that day we became the
Baldemer Colts Official Archives and Museum. In two thousand and five,
(19:11):
our museum opened another museum called Sports Legends Museum at
Camden Yards, and it featured, among other things, a major
display on the history of the Baltimore Colts. It turned
out to be one of the most popular exhibits in
that museum. People would go in there and get tears
in their eyes just thinking about their great Baltemore Colts teams.
(19:36):
They really, as I said before, were more than just
an NFL franchise. They were part of the fabric of
this community and part of what made the NFL of
what it has become today. We called that exhibit almost religion,
because in fact, that's what the Baltemer Cults were to
the city of Baltimore.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
An excellent job is always the Rabbi and a special
thing thanks to Mike Gibbons, Director Emeritus and historian at
the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, The story of the
Baltimore Cults here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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