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1930 was the last time it had seen professional baseball. Huntsville then had a Class D team in the Georgia-Alabama League. It lasted just one season after finishing 35-66 under five different managers.

Now at last, the efforts of Mayor Joe Davis and owner Larry Schmittou were realized, and once again, Huntsville, a team without a professional team of any kind, had their own baseball team. No longer would bored engineers and professionals, tired of Huntsville's non-existant nightlife spend their monotonous nights in bars watching The National Pasttime. Huntsvillians had a new place to spend a summer night. This kind of delight was never felt before in this city. It may have been a novelty to the non-baseball fans in this football/NECKCAR-crazy state, but it was welcomed with open arms.

And they had the bonus in seeing their city and team in the standings in newspapers and sports publications across the country, on the back of baseball cards, and mentioned in passing by sportswriters and broadcasters nationally as their future major league hopefuls were talked about.

And oh, there would be a few. From Charlie O'Brien to Pete Zoccolillo, 141 players have graduated from Huntsville to the majors. In fact, for three straight years, from 1986-1988, the American League Rookies-of-the-Year had spent time in Huntsville --- Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, and Walt Weiss. And there was Terry Steinbach, Eric Plunk, Luis Polonia, Eric Plunk, Darrell Akerfelds, Greg Cadaret, and so many others.

So they came from places far and wide in North Alabama on this night --- Boaz, New Hope, Falkville, Decatur. Even out west in Florence and Center Star, and Scottsboro to the east, wearing baseball caps, army caps, and cowboy hats, three-piece suits and overalls, doctors, lawyers, plumbers, mechanics, farmers and their wives.

"I don't remember the city ever getting this excited about an event before," said the long-time Huntsville Mayor, for whom the park was justly named.

Nobody cared at all if the excitement of the night far exceeded the excitement of the game. It was a 10-0 walk. Even Tim Belcher's six innings of work wasn't all that great. Of the 106 pitches he threw, only 54 were for strikes. But when the first pitch in the new stadium was thrown by Tim Belcher to Charlie O'Brien was called a ball, the fans let out a simultaneous cheer. The Huntsville Stars knew how welcomed they were in the Rocket City.

Still, the game had everything.

The first home run at the Joe was an inside-the-park job by Ray Thoma, a line drive hit over the head of Birmingham centerfielder Rodney Hobbs. Jose Canseco hit a low fast ball for a grand-slam home run over the scoreboard in left-center field, one of only a handful hit like that until a video screen was added in 1994. That capped a 6-run rally in the 7th inning, but before that, Charlie O'Brien had hit the first out-of-the-park home run in the 2nd inning, breaking a 4-for-26 slump. And centerfielder Stan Javier awed the crowd with the defensive gem of the game, a galloping over-the-shoulder catch of a line drive off the bat of Rondal Rollin to choke off a Baron threat in the 1st.

The next day, Sunday, only half as many showed up --- still a good crowd by SL standards --- to see the Stars pound the Barons again, 12-6. At the end of the season, over 300,000 had come to Joe Davis Stadium to see the Stars. The novelty was over. In 1994, almost 298,000 came out to see the Stars. That's as close as the Stars ever got to filling the park like that for a full season. If the Stars draw 289,402 this season, which would be the best figure since 1997, and 4th best all-time, they will have welcomed their 5 millionth customer, but attendance has been sliding since 1999 and last year was the first season less than 200,000 came out since 1988.

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