1994 season

Speros's approach to building the team was simple. He knew Canadian football was very different from the American game, so he made a point of hiring personnel and players with CFL experience. In contrast, the other American CFL teams stocked their rosters with former NFL players, former college football players, and locally-known players. Speros hired career CFL assistant Jim Popp as general manager, and named longtime CFL coach Don Matthews as head coach. Popp and Matthews, in turn, brought in experienced CFL players like QB Tracy Ham, RB Mike Pringle, LB O. J. Brigance, DT Jearld Baylis, DE Elfrid Payton. One of the more prominent NFL castoffs was K Donald Igwebuike; the team also offered a tryout to former Super Bowl XXII champion, Timmy Smith, who had been out of football several years by that point, but Smith failed to make the regular season roster. It also helped that Memorial Stadium had been originally built to accommodate baseball as well as football. Using Memorial Stadium's baseball seating configuration gave it a field large enough to accommodate the full 150-yard length and 65-yard width of a regulation CFL field.

Even though they lacked an official name, the team finished second in the CFL East Division, with a 12–6 regular season record – more wins than any CFL expansion team before or since. In addition, the team was ranked third in the entire CFL in team scoring, and second in team defense.

Mike Pringle was the team's offensive standout. Among other accomplishments, he earned the league's leading rushing title with a record 1,972 yards and thirteen touchdowns. Pringle also returned 38 kicks for 814 yards, which made him a CFL All-Star, Eastern All-Star, and a Terry Evanshen Trophy winner.

In the playoffs, Baltimore hosted the Toronto Argonauts in the East semifinals at Memorial Stadium and won the game, 34–15. After the semifinal game, Baltimore ended up defeating the favored Winnipeg Blue Bombers at Winnipeg Stadium 14–12 to become the first (and only) American and expansion team to make it to the Grey Cup.

In the Grey Cup game, Baltimore was up against the B.C. Lions at BC Place Stadium in what amounted to a road game. Baltimore had the upper hand against the Lions, leading 17–10 at halftime and silencing the Lions' faithful; however, the Lions came back in the second half, winning by a score of 26–23 on a last-second Lui Passaglia field goal.

1995 season

Baltimore Stallions with Mayor Kurt Schmoke

After the 1994 season, the CFL announced that the League's five U.S. teams—Baltimore, the San Antonio Texans (the former Sacramento Gold Miners), the Shreveport Pirates and the expansion Memphis Mad Dogs and Birmingham Barracudas—would be placed in a new South Division, while the Canadian teams would reside in the North Division. Just before the start of the 1995 season, a name-the-team fan poll was held to decide a new team name. After the team finished the first week of its second season still calling itself "the Baltimore Football Club", the fan poll ended; Speros publicly announced that Baltimore's team would be known as the "Baltimore Stallions". The name change was a convenient one in that it allowed Baltimore's logo and colors to remain unchanged from the 1994 season.

Despite the changes to their name and team re-alignment, the Stallions returned with virtually the same roster for their next season. The exception was the signing of former Posse kicker Carlos Huerta to replace Igwebuike, who moved on to play with Memphis. With essentially the same team from the 1994 season, optimism and Grey Cup expectations were high for the Stallions. Optimism became reality as Baltimore continued their on-field dominance from the previous season. They started the season 2–3, but did not lose another game for the rest of the season. They ultimately finished with a 15–3 regular season record – first place in the South Division, and tying the Calgary Stampeders for the best record in the CFL.

Quarterback Tracy Ham with Mike Pringle and Robert Drummond were the most potent backfield in the CFL. Chris Armstrong became the team's top receiver and the defense continued dominating opponents by allowing only 369 points-against, ranking the squad third in team defense. Mike Pringle had a slight drop-off from his 1994 numbers by rushing for 1,791 yards, being named the CFL's Most Outstanding Player.

After defeating Winnipeg 36–21 in the divisional semifinals, the Stallions defeated the Texans 21–11 in the South final in what is (as of the 2022 season) the last meaningful CFL game played in the United States. This vaulted them to the Grey Cup final for the second straight season. They traveled to Regina's Taylor Field to face the 15–3 North Division champion Stampeders, who were led by coach Wally Buono, QB Doug Flutie, and his two top receivers, Allen Pitts and Dave Sapunjis. During the game, the winds at Taylor Field were particularly strong and gusted up to 85 km/h (52.8 mph). That did not slow down the Stallions, as they defeated the Stampeders, 37–20 to become the first American team to win the Grey Cup, with Tracy Ham becoming the Grey Cup's Most Valuable Player. Counting the playoffs, the Stallions ended the season on a 16-game winning streak.

Fan support

In addition to being the most successful of the U.S. CFL teams on the field, Baltimore was far and away the most successful of the CFL's American teams at the box office. It had significant fan support and strong attendance – averaging 37,347 in 1994 (best in the CFL), and 30,112 in 1995 (second best).

Fan support in Baltimore was driven by a number of factors not present in the CFL's other U.S. markets. Their success on the field was one obvious factor. However many fans were motivated to support the CFL out of antipathy towards the NFL, which had not only backed the re-location of the NFL Colts to Indianapolis, but had subsequently spurned several attempts to return an NFL franchise to the city. Another major factor in Baltimore's success at the gate was the 1994–95 Major League Baseball strike, which wiped out the last two months of the Orioles' season. Baltimore was also a significantly more heavily populated market than the other CFL American markets and the only one to have previously hosted an NFL team, giving the Stallions a larger base from which to draw fans. Finally, the Stallions did not have to compete with college football for an audience to nearly the same extent as the other U.S. CFL franchises.

In the end

After the 1995 season, the CFL decided to disband three of its five American franchises and return to its traditional east–west divisional alignment for the 1996 season. The two remaining American teams, Baltimore and San Antonio, were to be placed in the CFL's East Division.

However, this strategy collapsed on the week of the South Division final, when longtime Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell announced he would be moving his team to Baltimore. Speros had initially not believed the rumors of Modell courting Baltimore when they cropped up in September. However, as soon as the move was announced, local support for the Stallions dried up almost overnight. The loss of support was so dramatic that the Stallions were forced to basically give away tickets for the South Division final. The Grey Cup victory celebration at Inner Harbor went almost unnoticed in the local media, although a few local dignitaries such as Mayor Kurt Schmoke attended.^[3]

Even after the NFL's return to Baltimore became certain, Schmoke and other city leaders claimed that the Stallions could coexist with Modell's team, which was eventually reconstituted as the Baltimore Ravens. However, Speros and CFL officials soon realized that no matter how successful the Stallions had been, they had no realistic prospect of competing head-to-head with an NFL team. As the team's successful Grey Cup run was still ongoing, it was clearly apparent that there would not be enough advertising revenue or fan support to go around. Even without that to consider, using Memorial Stadium would have posed a logistical nightmare once the NFL season began in September. The conditions set by the NFL to permit the Ravens to temporarily play at Memorial Stadium pending completion of a new stadium would have made it all but impossible for the venue to convert its grass field back and forth between the two leagues' specifications when the two leagues' seasons overlapped. No other stadium in the Baltimore area was suitable or large enough even for temporary CFL use.

Rather than risk being reduced to "minor league" status in Baltimore, Speros ceded Baltimore to the Ravens and announced plans to move the franchise. He was actually very close to moving the franchise to Houston, Texas, to take advantage of the pending departure of the NFL's recently departed Houston Oilers from the Astrodome, with then-Houston Astros owner Drayton McLane as a minority partner.^[3] However, under prodding from CFL officials who believed the American experiment was a lost cause, Speros began talks with officials in Montreal. CFL commissioner Larry Smith believed the defending CFL champions would be a better vehicle for bringing the CFL back to Montreal rather than what would have essentially been an expansion team.^[3] At a league meeting on February 2, 1996; Speros was granted permission to move the Stallions to Montreal, effectively ending the American experiment.^[4] Although Speros seriously considered whether to keep the Stallions name,^[5] he ultimately decided to give up the Stallions franchise and reconstitute his organization as the third and current incarnation of the Montreal Alouettes. Speros kept the Alouettes for only one year before selling the franchise to Robert C. Wetenhall in 1997.

Sixteen former Baltimore Stallions players earned tryouts for NFL teams in 1996.^[2]

Canadian Football Hall of Fame

• 8 Tracy Ham, inducted in 2010, Quarterback 1994–1995, won 83rd Grey Cup
• 27 Mike Pringle, inducted in 2008, Running back 1994–1995, won 83rd Grey Cup
• 56 Elfrid Payton, inducted in 2010, Defensive end 1994–1995, won 83rd Grey Cup
• Don Matthews, inducted in 2011, Head Coach 1994–1995, won 83rd Grey Cup

Awards and accomplishments