It's been forty years since the Colts packed up in the middle of the night and moved from Baltimore to Indianapolis. But why exactly did the Colts leave Baltimore and how did they end up in Indianapolis. I'm JJ Stankowitz, and over four episodes of The Move, a new podcast I'm hosting on the Colts Audio Network, we will answer those questions about maybe the most infamous move in American professional
sports history. You'll hear from those who lived it, including jim irsay, Rick Venturi, John Zeeman, Debbie Knox, Tom Griswold, and several others. In Baltimore, if you were a cult player, you were king.
The Baltimore Colts established the NFL. To go back and look at those three years where they had a really good team, About half the games were sold out, a lot of games to forty five thousand, Memorial Stadium was shot, And again I reiterate, that's the only thing I'll agree.
With the bother saying this went on for years. The tale of the team.
We were told, don't go anywhere this weekend because we're probably going to become the Arizona Colts when Indianapolis shows up. You're like, they're not an NFL city, how can they take this team? The nickname was Knaptown, which was that sleepy little town in Indiana. It was the Inny five hundred, and it was basketball when they.
First started talking about building the dome and and all that sort of thing.
And you're kind of like, yeah, right, okay, you don't have a team. Really, what's this going to look like? So I called my dad in the morning. Dad, Frank and I are in Indianapolis. What do we do?
Now?
What are you doing in Indianapolis? What the hell is going on?
I go?
You told me to go to Indianapolis with Frank Hush.
I saw my father cry twice in his life. My father was born in nineteen nineteen. He died in ninety two. I saw him cry when his sister died, and I saw him cry when the Colts left down.
The truth is he had to move there threatening them in at domain.
There no stadium deal to go that was even close to being worthwhile.
So you had to move.
I told you how angry it made me just to see the worship.
People were cheering.
Everything that would cheer. Everything didn't matter. It was clear to all I knew was a had an NFL team.
The first episode of the Move, which explores the rise and fall of the Baltimore Colts, will be released on Monday, June twenty fourth. Subscribe to the Colts Audio Network on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast platform of choice to get new episodes of The Move delivered to your feed every Monday morning between now and mid July. You can also listen to the episodes on YouTube and the Colts app.