Sports Memorabilia

1978 Baltimore Colts Joe Washington Game-used Jersey

Appraisal: Baltimore Colts Joe Washington Game-used Jersey

Transcript

APPRAISER: Nice jersey-- it's riddled with holes.

GUEST: (chuckles): You say jersey, it's really a rag at this point I think but -

APPRAISER: (laughs): It's a rag.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: Tell me about it, who is, who's Washington?

GUEST: Well, that's Joe Washington. He played for the Baltimore Colts when there was such a team, and this came from his most famous game. It was a 1978 Monday Night Football game with Howard Cosell in the booth, and the game was incredible.

APPRAISER: Washington and, and his Colts are facing off against the Patriots, right?

GUEST: Correct.

APPRAISER: Okay, why was it such an amazing game?

GUEST: Well, first, on a personal level, it was amazing 'cause I was a 16-year-old kid at the time...

APPRAISER: (chuckling)

GUEST: ...and a ball boy for the Baltimore Colts. So in the locker room before the game, Joe came up to me. He had four of these jerseys nicely folded in a neat little pile and a pair of scissors. And he asked me to cut holes all throughout them. I'd been with the Colts since I was 11, uh, working at games and helping out, and so I had never had a player ask me to do this. I was confused, but he explained it to me. They're tear-away jerseys, and that was going to help him, as a running back, get away from defenders.

APPRAISER: Quite a strategy. So what's, what's fun is that it worked, right?

GUEST: The guy had the game of his life.

APPRAISER: (laughing)

GUEST: The Colts were losing. They were big underdogs in the game. He, Joe ended up being involved in three touchdowns in the fourth quarter

alone. He threw for one on a halfback option, he caught a touchdown pass, and, with a minute and change left, he ran a kickoff back 90 yards to win

the game for the Colts. So it was a huge victory for them and performance for him.

APPRAISER: And to this day, only player ever to do that. To throw a touchdown, catch a touchdown, and return a kickoff for a touchdown.

GUEST: And he did it all in one quarter.

APPRAISER: So this hole-riddled cloth... (laughing) ...this rag, this was part of that historic performance. So he wore this for that game.

GUEST: The four that I cut the holes in, he went through all four of them. And as a kid, a ball boy on the sideline, I thought it was kind of fun and funny...

APPRAISER: (laughing)

GUEST: ...as it was going on, because I'm watching this guy, and he's doing so well, and they keep grabbing him and they can't get him, because

he's, they're grabbing the holes and ripping it. The NFL actually ended up banning tear-away jerseys.

APPRAISER: Looking at the jersey, of course, the back is riddled with holes.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER (laughing): Now, my favorite part, of course, is, you want to talk about riddled with holes. I mean, here's tear-away at its finest.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: Uh, torn away-- number 27, the seven's gone. (laughs) So, you know, Joe ran hard.

GUEST: Joe had an incredible night, he had an incredible career, and he's a wonderful human being, so it's been fun to keep up with him through the

years. Uh, he and I speak every once in a while. He knows that I still have this, uh, piece of, uh, memory and history from that night, and, uh, it brings me a lot of joy and memories. If you had told me when I was a 16-year-old boy... (chuckling) ...in that locker room cutting holes in this thing, that as a 60-year-old man, I'd be standing here talking to someone about it, I don't think I would've believed that.

APPRAISER: Did Joe give you the jersey?

GUEST: No-- that's probably one of the funny parts of this story, is... (chuckles) You know, as a ball boy, one of the things you do is help clean up the locker room after the game. And I asked Marty Daly-- I saw this and one other, there were two of them balled up on the floor with a bunch of trash and tape that had been cut off the ankles and all that. Marty said, "Yeah, we're not gonna do anything with them. You're, you're... What are we going to do with them? You can go ahead and take 'em." And this one, when I got home, I actually used thumbtacks and put it up on my wall, uh, in my childhood bedroom. And it stayed there for a number of years before I, uh, grew up a little and grew out of it, I guess.

APPRAISER: I mean, it already had holes.

GUEST: It had plenty of holes already. (laughing) So I added a couple more small ones, yeah.

APPRAISER: For a piece like this, I want to talk to you about insurance value.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: I want to ta, I don't want to talk auction value. You're not gonna sell this, and I know you're not, right? And I'd tackle you if you tried.

GUEST: No, I'm not gonna sell it.

APPRAISER: Um, insurance-wise, we're looking at $6,000 to $8,000...

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: ...is right around what you could expect to, to place on this for insurance.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: Yeah.

GUEST: Fantastic.

APPRAISER: Yeah-- really awesome piece, man.

GUEST: Well, thanks for having me here today. (laughs) And it's been really neat to be able to share a little bit of Joe Washington and the old Baltimore Colts with you. (laughs) It's been a lot of fun.