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Throughout its existence, many great players and teams
have played
at Memorial Stadium. Baltimore's first
professional football team, the All-American Football Conference
Colts were established in 1946 in Miami and were known as the
Seahawks. They moved to Baltimore in 1947 and played for four
seasons at the Baltimore Stadium. The Colts were disbanded after
the 1950 season. Hoping to land a professional baseball team,
the city decided to build a partial stadium at a cost of $2.5
million. The stadium had one level of wooden bleachers that could
seat 31,000 fans. After failing to attract a professional baseball team
to
Memorial Stadium, the city decided to rebuild the stadium to try
to lure the St. Louis Browns to Baltimore. The city succeeded and
the Browns moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles. An upper
deck without a roof and new seats were added. The seating capacity
increased from 31,000 to 46,000. The stadium had a rounded
horseshoe appearance and the second tier spanned the entire inside of the
horseshoe.
In 1953, the NFL awarded Baltimore a franchise that took the name
of the old AFC Colts. The Baltimore Colts played their inaugural
first game at Memorial Stadium on September 27, 1953. Over 46,000
fans filled the two tier structure to watch the Colts play the
Chicago Bears. Memorial Stadium underwent several expansions
during its existence. Box seats were added in 1961 increasing the
seating capacity to 49,000. By 1964, the upper deck was
lengthened, with two sections added at both ends of the horseshoe.
The seating capacity was increased to 54,000 for baseball and
65,000 for football. In 1970, a digital scoreboard replaced the
original "Gunther" scoreboard, that sat beyond the endzone.
Memorial Stadium was a great place to watch a baseball game, but
an terrible place to watch football. During football season, the
field was laid out so that the upper deck extended sixty yards
from the end zone of the horseshoe, past the 50-yard line to the
40-yard line where it ended on both sides. Not only were quality
seats missing, but along with the obstructed seating, the
"horseshoe" shape of the stadium was terrible for football,
because the 40-50 yard line seats actually took fans away from the
field. Consequently by the early 1980s, the Colts became
dissatisfied with Memorial Stadium. The team wanted their own
stadium to play at, so they decided to move to Indianapolis after
the 1983 season. The Colts played their last game at Memorial
Stadium on December 18, 1983.
After
the Colts left, the Baltimore Orioles (MLB) were the only tenant
at Memorial Stadium. The team constructed a state of the art
ballpark in downtown
Baltimore
and moved from Memorial Stadium after the 1991 season. For five
years, Memorial Stadium was home to various minor league teams.
Meanwhile, in the early 1990, in Cleveland, owner of the Browns,
Art Modell, sought a new facility for his team. After failing to
reach an agreement with the City of Cleveland to have a stadium built, Modell decided to move
his team to Baltimore, where the city offered to build a new
stadium. The Cleveland Browns became the Baltimore Ravens. While a
new stadium was constructed, the Ravens temporarily played at Memorial
Stadium. An excited 64,124 fans watched the Ravens play their
first game at Memorial Stadium on September 1, 1996. The Ravens played only two
seasons at Memorial Stadium before moving into M&T Bank Stadium in
downtown Baltimore. The last professional football game at
Memorial Stadium was on December 14, 1997. Memorial Stadium
remained vacant for the rest of its existence. The city of
Baltimore finally decided to demolish Memorial Stadium in February 2001.
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