HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — When Rick Davis set his sights on being the first voice of the Huntsville Stars, he was in uncharted waters.
Davis, who had been a successful sportscaster in town, knew he wanted to be the Stars’ inaugural play-by-play guy when he heard professional baseball was coming to the area, but he was entering uncharted waters.
“I had done college football, college basketball, I had even done some ice hockey, but I had never done baseball,” Davis said. “Baseball for me was the hardest sport to broadcast cause there’s no clock.”
Initially, Davis asked Huntsville’s Mr. Baseball, Don Mincher, to be his color guy. Mincher said he didn’t think he could do it because he had already been asked to be the general manager. He would advocate for Davis to get the job.
However, his audition for owner Larry Schmittou happened in an unusual place and didn’t leave him feeling like he had the job.
“I had done some work at WTAK, so they let me use the station, so I had a reel-to-reel tape of a basketball game that I had done. Larry and Don came out; they wanted to hear what I could do, so I put a tape on the reel, closed the door to the production studio, said, ‘Hit this button and it will play,’” Davis said. “Literally a minute later, he [Schmittou] came out and he said okay thanks.”
Davis wasn’t sure what to think at this point.
“I didn’t know what a minute worth, I thought maybe he needs a little more time,” Davis said. “Maybe I could find a better tape.”
Davis didn’t know it, but he had just secured the job as the first voice of the Stars. Mincher called him the next day to confirm the news, something that made Davis so excited he started jumping up and down.
Getting the job was the easy part. The work had just begun for Davis as he and a staff filled with several people who had never worked in baseball were now tasked with starting a franchise.
“We literally went to baseball school,” Davis said. “That first week we were all employed, we were learning the names of all the different minor leagues and who they were affiliated with.”
He said that once the team arrived, he knew they would be a smashing success.
“That first roster was 22 players and 13 of them went to the big leagues, that never happens, you can say Oakland stacked the team well, maybe they did, I don’t know,” Davis said. “Maybe they were just ready to be at this level and have that kind of success.”
Support poured in from all over the community, with area businesses spending heavily to get their names on the outfield wall and season tickets becoming a popular item. The first voice of the Huntsville Stars said this made the first season so easy.
“It was easy that first year, people were ready to go. We had 39 fence signs that were for sale, and I know I sold 13 of them in one meeting with an advertising agency, and boom, they just snapped them up,” Davis said. “Season tickets went crazy, so people were very excited and got involved early.”
Davis traveled with the team, which led him to become a stringer for the Huntsville Times. However, many who read his work might not know it because his byline read ‘Special to the Times.’
Writing for the Times led to him becoming a full-time sportswriter at the paper in 1988 after a quick stop back in TV. He eventually transitioned out of the media industry, but got to witness one of the greatest minor league teams ever.
Davis said he looks forward to seeing many of the 1985 Stars, including MLB legend Jose Canseco, back in town when the Trash Pandas honor them on Aug. 28.
“I got to see a lot of them in ’23, this year I think we are going to get almost all of them back, I think they are all coming back and we know for a fact that Jose and Ozzie, his twin brother, they’ve both agreed to come in,” Davis said. “I think that’ll be the lynchpin that kind of gets everybody else to come back too.”
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