Joe Davis Stadium: 40 years since Huntsville’s baseball landmark opened

Some might call it the year Huntsville had its “glow up.” The time when the medium-sized burg finally became a “big city.”

It was 40 years ago, in April of 1985, that Joe Davis Stadium was constructed and became home to the city’s first minor league baseball team, the Huntsville Stars.

The stadium, which cost $5.7 million to build and was named for a five-time Huntsville mayor, was at the time a state-of-the-art facility, according to a 1985 article in The Huntsville Times.

Click through the gallery at the top of this story to see photos from the stadium’s 40-year history.

The gleaming new Madison Square Mall had opened less than two years before on the west side of Huntsville in an area still surrounded by farms.

It would be nearly four more decades before Huntsville became Alabama’s largest city, but it was on its way.

On April 19, 1985, the day the stadium opened with a game between the Stars and the Birmingham Barons, Huntsville Times sports editor Bill McCutcheon wrote: “This time a year ago, a new stadium and baseball team in this city were purely items of the imagination … It’s 1985 and our dreams have come true.”

That night, a crowd of 10,022 turned out to watch the Stars hit four home runs and beat the Barons 10-0. Standout players in those first seasons included José Canseco, Tim Belcher, Rob Nelson and Stan Javier, all of whom went on to play in the MLB.

Canseco, an outfielder and designated hitter, was a main draw for fans in the Huntsville Stars’ first year. He would later break numerous records in the MLB, including being the first player in history to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in a single season in 1988. Canseco’s star later lost its luster amid legal disputes, domestic violence charges and his admission to using anabolic steroids to enhance his performance.

The Joe

Joe Davis Stadium was called “The Crown Jewel of the Southern League” upon its opening, a time when many minor league stadiums were aging. A building trend in the 1990s brought other fields to the same standard as Joe Davis.

Nicknamed “The Joe,” the stadium was located on property along South Memorial Parkway that was previously the site of the city’s first airport.

With a capacity of 10,200 people, it was built as a multi-purpose stadium and also hosted soccer, college and high school football and community events, according to Rick Davis, former Stars broadcast manager in an interview for WAAY TV.

Tickets in that first season cost $5.50 for box seats, $4.75 for reserved seats, $4.50 for reserved grandstand and $4 for general admission, according to an advertisement.

A new beginning

The Huntsville Stars began struggling with a decline in attendance in the early 2000s and played their last season in 2014. The stadium was used briefly by the Biloxi Shuckers in 2015 and then closed, 30 years after it opened. It was abandoned while Huntsville officials decided how to use the property.

Renovations began in 2022, and the stadium reopened in 2023 as a soccer field, now called Wicks Family Field at Joe Davis Stadium. The new 6,000-seat stadium is home to Huntsville City Football Club, a men’s professional soccer team that is a reserve team for Nashville Soccer Club.

The soccer stadium features a shop with team merchandise, a Yellowhammer Brewing Craft Beer Garden, concession stands and a turf field, according to a 2023 advertisement in the Huntsville Times. It is also used for high school football, rugby, lacrosse and more.

In 2021, minor league baseball returned to Madison County upon the completion of Toyota Field in Madison, home of the Rocket City Trash Pandas.