Baltimore CFLers
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| Founded | 1994 |
|---|---|
| Folded | 1995 |
| Based in | Baltimore, Maryland, United States |
| Home field | Memorial Stadium |
| Head coach | Don Matthews |
| General manager | Jim Popp |
| Owner(s) | Jim Speros |
| Division |
East Division (1994) South Division (1995) |
| Colors | Royal blue, silver, black and white |
| Grey Cup wins | 1995 |
| Uniform | |
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The Baltimore Stallions (known officially as the "Baltimore Football Club" and previously as the "Baltimore CFL Colts" in its inaugural season) were a Canadian Football League team based in Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States, which played the 1994 and 1995 seasons. They were the most successful American team in the CFL's generally ill-fated southern expansion effort into the United States, and by at least one account, the winningest expansion team in North American professional sports history at the time. They had winning records in each season, won a division championship, and, in 1995, became the only American franchise ever to win the Grey Cup.
Only a month after the Stallions' Grey Cup triumph, the state's Maryland Stadium Authority and the City of Baltimore announced that they had reached an agreement with Art Modell, the long-time owner of the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League, (NFL) to move his franchise to Baltimore for the 1996 season. Knowing they could not begin to compete with an overwhelmingly more popular brand in their home country, the Stallions relocated to Montreal as the third and current iteration of the Montreal Alouettes. They are thus one of three Grey Cup champions in the modern era to subsequently fold (the others being the Ottawa Rough Riders and the original Alouettes). The CFL considers the Stallions to be a separate franchise from the Alouettes.
For 30 years, Baltimore had been home to the Baltimore Colts, a popular NFL team that suddenly moved literally overnight to Indianapolis, Indiana in 1984. The former Philadelphia Stars of the United States Football League (USFL) nominally represented Baltimore in spring 1985, but played well outside the city bounds; the Stars had planned to move into Baltimore proper in fall 1986, but the league failed before this could happen. Baltimore made two serious bids to get another NFL team. It heavily wooed the St. Louis Cardinals football team owned by the Bidwill family, but they ultimately moved to Phoenix, Arizona as the Phoenix (later Arizona) Cardinals. In 1993, an ownership group failed to win an NFL expansion franchise as a replacement when the proposed Baltimore Bombers rejected.
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