Summary: <p>Those of you born after 1984 may not realize that the Indianapolis Colts were not always in Indiana. The story of the Colts, as I alluded to last week, is a long and bizarre one, stemming back to 1913 when they were the Dayton Cadets. Over time the team moved, ended, was resurrected and moved again. Today we’ll try and give a breakdown of the moves, the big changes and the decisions that made the Colts what they are in today’s NFL. </p> <h2>Dayton Triangles (1913-1930)</h2> <p>Let’s hop in the wayback machine to the year of 1913. Football has become a popular sport throughout the midwest and east coast. Teams are popping up everywhere and many cities have enough teams to have their own mini leagues. The sport was especially popular in the state of Ohio with one of the most famous early teams originating in Columbus, the Panhandles, but that’s a story for another day. By 1913, most of the base rules of football were set (scoring, timing, gameplay) and a team in Dayton decided to become legit, mainly because they’d just graduated from the University of Dayton (as we know it today). They changed their name briefly to the Gym-Cadets in 1915 and then changed to the Dayton Triangles in 1920. </p> <p>The name “Triangles” is thought to have come from the three different Dayton factories of which the team was made up. The Triangles experienced great local success and in 1920 beat the Columbus Panhandles in one of the first sanctioned NFL games. As the 1920s rolled on, teams were becoming bigger, stronger and faster while Dayton maintained their same lineup from locally-sourced players. With little monetary hope for a future, the team sold for $2,500 (about $36,000 adjusted) in 1930 and became the Brooklyn Dodgers. </p> <h2>Brooklyn Dodgers (1930-1944)</h2> <p>While the Dodgers experienced early success, their lifetime record was 60 wins, 100 losses and 9 ties, never finishing more than 2nd in their respective division. The Dodgers were an NFL franchise, but after an 0-10 season (in which they merged with a team from Boston), their owner, Dan Topping, decided he wanted out and accepted ownership of an AAFC team, the New York Yankees (still football). The NFL closed out the Brooklyn Dodgers franchise in 1945 and allowed them to continue as a team with Boston, becoming the Boston Yanks. </p> <h2>Boston Yanks, New York Bulldogs, New York Yanks (1945-1951)</h2> <p>This team was also really bad. They played in Fenway Park most of the time. From Wikipedia: “The Boston Yanks are the only officially defunct NFL team ever to have the first overall NFL draft pick. They had it twice, in 1944 and 1946. Both times they selected a quarterback from the University of Notre Dame.” The Yanks then moved to New York as the Bulldogs and then later became the New York Yanks. Jerseys would have been cheaper if they stayed as the Yanks all the way through, but what do I know. The team played at the Polo Grounds and were owned by Ted Collins until 1951 when, after going 1-9, they were sold back to the NFL. </p> <h2>Dallas Texans (1952)</h2> <p>In 1952 after Collins was dismissed as owner of the New York Yanks, the NFL granted permission to some Dallas folks to buy up the Yanks. The crew from Dallas promptly turned them into the Dallas Texans and moved them to Dallas. Things went poorly. As the season was winding down the Texans stopped playing at the Cotton Bowl and moved back to the midwest, playing in Ohio and Pennsylvania. The team would fold and then sell to Carroll Rosenbloom who moved them to Baltimore and changed the name to the Colts. </p> <h2>Baltimore Colts (1947-1950, 1953-1984)</h2> <p>The name Baltimore Colts originated in 1947 when the Colts were playing in the AAFC. The Colts then became a part of the NFL in 1950, went 1-11 and were promptly turned in to dust. The team laid dormant, but the fans never gave up hope. Rosenbloom and the NFL were praised when the Colts came back in 1953. The t</p>
