From Colts to Ravens: A Behind-The-Scenes Look at Baltimore Professional Football

by John Steadman and Xio Axelrod

Book Overview

Step into the locker rooms, the playing fields, and the owners' offices with sportswriter John F. Steadman as he relates the fascinating tale of football in Baltimore. In scores of animated first-person accounts, the author tells it like it was: from the organization of the Colts in 1947, through the sale of the team to Bob Irsay in 1972, to the infamous trip out of the town under the cover of darkness in 1984, and finally the acquisition of a new...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0870334972
• ISBN13: 9780870334979
• Release Date: June 2009
• Publisher: Schiffer Publishing
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

good read

the stories in here are quite entertaning and there are some pretty good pics in here as well Mr steadman did a very good job with this book..my only complaint(this is why i gave it 4 stars) is that while talking about the browns moving to baltimore in the beginning of the book he tends to be a bit repetitive

An eyewitness account

FROM COLTS TO RAVENS is a virtual eyewitness account of Baltimore's pro football history from one who saw it all. Not only did John Steadman attend every game ever played by the Baltimore Colts as a reporter or team official, he also saw every game the Ravens played until last December when his soon-to-be-fatal illness ended his streak. Steadman was an official for the Colts during the mid-50's until the opportunity to return to the Baltimore News-Post presented itself. So he was very familiar with all the inside details. Steadman pulls no punches about the Colts' operations under both Carroll Rosenblum and Robert Irsay and is complimentary towards neither. He also takes the National Football League to task for allowing the Colts to be stolen from Baltimore in the middle of the night and for denying Baltimore the rights to an expansion team. Art Modell doesn't escape the Steadman scorn, either, for the way he ultimately treated the loyal Browns fans in Cleveland, even though the result was a new team for his hometown, Baltimore. John, like most Baltimoreans, wanted and expected an expansion team, not one that was stolen from another city. If you are interested in reading about the behind-the-scenes activities surrounding one of the NFL's storied franchises and in one of the most controversial franchise shifts, this is the book for you. You might be surprised by the actions of some of the people you thought you knew from their press clippings. By the way, this is not a hatchet job by a disgruntled writer. John was not that kind of reporter or columnist.