HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — April 19 marks 40 years since the Huntsville Stars made their home debut at Joe Davis Stadium.
The since-defunct minor league team played in Huntsville from 1985 to 2014 before moving to Biloxi, Mississippi. But the impact the organization had on the Tennessee Valley is profound.
In a region that is highly passionate about sports, where Friday nights are spent rooting for hometown teams, and on Saturdays in the Fall, many hit I-65 to see the Tide and Tigers play, something was missing.
The Stars filled that void of a professional team that the Rocket City had an appetite for and made many fall in love with the game of baseball.
“Before that, we tried some little semi-professional type sports,” Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle said. “But, there wasn’t really anything to bring everybody together.”
When talk of the Stars coming to town began, it wasn’t the first time that a team was rumored to begin playing ball here.
“There was a guy here in town who had talked about bringing a minor league team here and they were looking at different leagues around the area and who might be a good fit, league wise for a franchise here in Huntsville, nothing every really came about it,” former Huntsville Stars radio voice Rick Davis said.
At that time, a smart, savvy businessman from Nashville saw an opportunity to fill the void.
Larry Schmittou already owned the Nashville Sounds, who at the time were the New York Yankees’ Double-A affiliate. Schmittou had bigger plans for his hometown team and began looking at options to get them to Triple-A.
Schmittou purchased the Evansville Triplets and relocated them to Nashville, meaning he needed somewhere for the Double-A franchise to go.
“After looking at several cities, the mayor of Huntsville, Mayor Davis, was wanting a team,” Schmittou said. “We started talking to Huntsville about building a stadium and getting a team.”
A professional sports organization is a big deal for any city, no matter the level. But for Huntsville in the mid-1980s, there might not have been a better time.
“Huntsville was really starting to grow, starting to grow, have a lot of pride in its growth, feeling more like a city instead of a big town,” Sportswriter Mark McCarter said. “One of the great status symbols of being a city is having your own sports franchise, and the Stars became that.”
Huntsville’s growth and it being in the Southern League’s footprint were major factors in him bringing the Stars to Huntsville. Evansville, Indiana and New Orleans were other cities under consideration for landing the franchise.
“One thing led to another, and Mayor Davis went to work and tried to put a package together for me,” Schmittou said.
“I just love Huntsville, it was just a middle size city that had big city attractions,” Schmittou said.
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