The Huntsville Stars Collection — Royal Retros Huntsville Stars Fan Shop

Authentic Huntsville Stars Throwbacks. Custom Names & Numbers. Sizes S–5XL.

Royal Retros carries the Huntsville Stars throwback jersey, tee and hat that no big-box retailer bothers to stock — three products built around one of the most talent-rich Double-A rosters in minor league baseball history. The jersey is $84.99 in White, Blue, Red or one of two button-down colorways, sizes Small through 5XL, with free custom name and number. The tee is $29.99 in four colorways, and the unstructured hat runs $29.99. There is no current Huntsville Stars team to buy from — the franchise left for Mississippi after the 2014 season and now plays as the Biloxi Shuckers — which makes this small collection one of the only places left to wear the Huntsville name at all.

What You Can Shop in the Huntsville Stars Collection

Huntsville Stars Jersey — A twill-lettered throwback in White, Blue or Red pullover styling, plus Gray or White button-down cuts, sized Small through 5XL, with free custom name and number on request. Put a Stars original on the back — Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Scott Brosius — or your own. $84.99. Shop the jersey.

Huntsville Stars T-Shirt — Soft, pre-shrunk cotton in four colorways: Red, Athletic Heather and White run Small through 5XL, and True Royal runs Small through 4XL. $29.99. Shop the tee.

Huntsville Stars Unstructured Hat — A relaxed dad-hat build in Royal, one-size-fits-most adjustable back. $29.99. Shop the hat.

Customization — Free custom name and number on the jersey. Custom items are made to order and final sale.

Sizes — Small through 5XL on the jersey and most tee colorways (True Royal runs through 4XL). The hat is one-size-fits-most.

Why Royal Retros Is the Home of Huntsville Stars Throwback Gear

• A roster deeper than most Triple-A clubs. Canseco, McGwire, Braun, Fielder — the Stars sent an outsized share of talent to two different major league organizations across three decades.
• Flat, honest pricing. Jersey $84.99, tee $29.99, hat $29.99. No "collector's" markup for a defunct-team throwback.
• Free customization on the jersey. Add a name and number at no extra cost.
• Sizes S–5XL on nearly everything. True family sizing, no big & tall upcharge.
• Deep Southern baseball coverage. Cross-shop the Stars alongside our Alabama collection — home of Huntsville's longtime Southern League rival in Birmingham — and the rest of our historic minor league baseball catalog.

Quick Buying Questions

What sizes does the Huntsville Stars jersey come in?

Small through 5XL, in White, Blue, Red, or Gray/White button-down styling. The tee runs Small through 5XL in three colorways and Small through 4XL in True Royal. The hat is one-size-fits-most.

Can I add my name and number to a Stars jersey?

Yes — free custom name and number on request. Choose a Huntsville Stars original or your own name. Custom items are made to order and final sale.

How fast does it ship and what's the return policy?

Stock items ship within 3–5 business days. Custom jerseys are sewn to order and typically ship within 7–10 business days. Custom items are final sale. Standard items follow our return policy at /pages/returns.

Gift Ideas for the Huntsville Stars Fan

• For the Bash Brothers era Athletics fan: Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire both came through Huntsville before their famous Oakland run — a jersey with real roots to that story.
• For the space-city local: The team was named for Huntsville's NASA and rocketry industry, not for a player or owner — a genuinely unusual origin story worth explaining to out-of-towners.
• For the Brewers-era collector: Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder and Rickie Weeks all played through Huntsville on their way to Milwaukee.
• For the minor league completist: Two major league organizations, three league titles, thirty years, one of the deepest alumni rosters in Double-A history.
• Year-round demand. Stars nostalgia isn't seasonal — birthdays, Father's Day and Opening Day itch all work.

Who Were the Huntsville Stars?

The Huntsville Stars were Huntsville, Alabama's Double-A professional baseball franchise from 1985 to 2014, playing in the Southern League for the entire thirty years at Joe W. Davis Stadium. The team was named not for a player, owner or mascot but for the city's own identity — Huntsville is home to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and has built its economy around the space and rocketry industry since the 1950s, and "Stars" was picked to reflect that. Over 4,211 regular-season games, the Stars compiled a composite record of 2,112–2,099, reached the postseason 14 times, and won three Southern League championships. They also, across two different major league affiliations, developed one of the most star-studded alumni rosters of any Double-A franchise in the country.

Why Was Baseball in Huntsville Called the Stars?

The Stars didn't inherit their identity from an earlier local club or borrow a nickname already in use somewhere else — the franchise was brand new in 1985, relocated wholesale from Nashville, and needed an identity of its own from day one. Team president Larry Schmittou's ownership group had purchased the Triple-A Evansville Triplets with plans to move that franchise to Nashville, elevating Nashville's existing Double-A Southern League club in the process. The Southern League objected to Schmittou's plan to simply ship the displaced Nashville franchise to Evansville, and a stadium dispute in Evansville killed that option anyway. Huntsville stepped in: Mayor Joe W. Davis committed the city to building a brand-new 10,000-seat stadium, and the relocated franchise took the field in 1985 as the Huntsville Stars — a name built entirely around the city's identity as "the Rocket City."

1985 — A Championship in the First Season

The new franchise didn't need time to find its footing. The 1985 Stars, in their very first season as the Double-A affiliate of the Oakland Athletics, won the Southern League championship outright, and outfielder Jose Canseco was named the league's Most Valuable Player. It remains one of the more remarkable debut seasons in minor league baseball — an expansion-in-all-but-name franchise winning the title in year one, with a future 40-40 man and American League MVP leading the way.

Canseco and McGwire — Before the Bash Brothers

The Oakland Athletics affiliation, which ran from 1985 to 1998, sent Huntsville a pipeline of players who went on to define an era of major league baseball. Jose Canseco came through in the Stars' championship 1985 season. Mark McGwire, Terry Steinbach, Walt Weiss and pitcher Tim Belcher all passed through Huntsville between 1985 and 1990, on their way to an Oakland Athletics roster that would become famous nationally as the "Bash Brothers" era — Canseco and McGwire's combined power numbers defined the late-1980s Athletics before either name became a household one. Terry Steinbach, who caught for Huntsville, was named MVP of the 1986 Southern League All-Star Game, hosted right there at Joe W. Davis Stadium. Later in the A's era, Tim Hudson and Miguel Tejada also spent time with the Stars on their way to long major league careers.

Third baseman Scott Brosius, who played for Huntsville in 1989 and 1990, led the entire Southern League in hits, total bases and doubles in his second season — a performance that helped propel him to an 11-year major league career, three World Series championships and the 1998 World Series MVP award with the New York Yankees. Brosius was inducted into the Southern League Hall of Fame in 2015.

1994 — The Franchise's Best Season

After missing the playoffs in 1993, the Stars won the Southern League championship again in 1994, this time over the Carolina Mudcats, and set a franchise record with an 81–57 regular season under manager of the year Gary Jones. It stands as the best regular-season mark in the club's 30-year history and the Athletics-era high point, a decade after the franchise's first title.

1998 — The Move to Milwaukee's Farm System

After the 1998 season, Huntsville and the Oakland Athletics parted ways, closing out a 14-year affiliation in which the Stars had gone 1,029–961. The Milwaukee Brewers took over as Huntsville's parent club beginning in 1999, and the pipeline kept producing major league talent under the new arrangement: outfielder Ben Grieve was named Southern League MVP in 1997 (in the Athletics' final years), and third baseman Corey Hart won the award in 2003 as a Brewers farmhand. Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, Jonathan Lucroy, Ben Sheets, Yovani Gallardo, Nelson Cruz, Lorenzo Cain, Michael Brantley and Mitch Haniger all spent time with Huntsville during the 16-year Brewers affiliation, which ran through the franchise's final season in 2014 with a composite record of 1,083–1,138.

No-Hitters and Milestones at Joe W. Davis Stadium

Beyond the pennant races, Joe W. Davis Stadium hosted its share of individual highlights across three decades. Pitchers Dana Allison, Roger Smithberg and Todd Revering combined on a 10-inning, 1–0 no-hitter against Birmingham on August 3, 1992. Tanyon Sturtze no-hit Chattanooga the following June. Years later, in the Brewers era, David Welch threw a seven-inning no-hitter against Chattanooga in 2008, and on August 2, 2012, five Huntsville pitchers — Jimmy Nelson, Dan Merklinger, R.J. Seidel, Darren Byrd and Brandon Kintzler — combined on another no-hitter against the Lookouts. The ballpark also hosted the 1986 Southern League All-Star Game and the very first Double-A All-Star Game in 1991, a genuine landmark in the format's history.

2001 — A Championship Canceled by September 11

The Stars won the Southern League's Western Division in 2001, setting up a championship series against the Eastern Division champion Jacksonville Suns. That series never happened. The September 11 attacks forced the cancellation of the Southern League championship series before it could begin, and the league declared Huntsville and Jacksonville co-champions rather than complete the postseason under the circumstances. It is one of the more unusual entries in the Stars' championship history — a title earned on the field but decided, in the end, by events far outside the sport.

Don Mincher — The Man Who Ran the Stars for Sixteen Years

Don Mincher, a Huntsville native and 12-year major league veteran, served as the Stars' general manager from the franchise's founding in 1985 until 2001, and was part-owner of the club from 1994 to 2001. He later served as interim and then full president of the Southern League itself in 2000 and 2001, running the league office and the Huntsville front office at the same time while he searched for a buyer committed to keeping the team in the city. The Huntsville Stars retired his uniform number 5 — the number he wore during his own playing career — on June 6, 2008, the only number retirement in franchise history apart from Jackie Robinson's number 42, honored throughout all of professional baseball.

Miles Prentice and the Fight to Keep the Stars in Huntsville

By the end of the 2000 season, Don Mincher's ownership group had put the Stars up for sale, and Mincher himself resigned as team president to focus on running the Southern League office, where he had just been named interim commissioner after Arnold Fielkow left to take a front-office job in professional football. Mincher spent months fielding offers for the franchise, some of them from groups that wanted to move the Stars to a new city entirely, before finding a buyer who would commit to keeping the team in Huntsville: New York attorney Miles Prentice, who already owned the Midland RockHounds, served as a director of the Texas League, and chaired the board of trustees of Minor League Baseball as a whole. Prentice turned down competing stadium offers from other cities and kept the franchise in the Tennessee Valley, buying the club early in 2001 — the same season that would end with the Stars sharing a championship rather than winning one outright.

Where the Stars Rank Among Southern League Franchises

The Southern League has produced some of the most storied names in American minor league baseball — the Birmingham Barons, the Chattanooga Lookouts, the Nashville Sounds the Stars themselves were carved out of, the Atlanta-area farm clubs that have cycled through the league for decades. Huntsville holds its own in that company on pure production: three league championships, 14 postseason appearances in 30 years, and a run of alumni talent that few Double-A franchises anywhere in the country can match, spread across two entirely different major league organizations a decade apart.

What makes the Stars unusual is the concentration of star power in a relatively short window. Most franchises produce a signature player or two across a generation. Huntsville produced Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire in the same five-year stretch, then Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder in another five-year stretch fifteen years later — two entirely separate waves of genuine major league stardom passing through the same Double-A clubhouse in Alabama. Few Southern League cities, even the ones with far longer or more continuous baseball histories, can point to two distinct eras of that caliber from a single 30-year franchise.

Why Did the Huntsville Stars Leave?

The Stars didn't fold — they were sold and relocated. Early in 2014, an ownership group based in Biloxi, Mississippi, led by Ken Young, purchased the franchise with plans to move it south. Because the new ballpark in Biloxi wasn't ready, the Stars played out their entire 30th and final season in Huntsville in 2014 before relocating for 2015 to become the Biloxi Shuckers. Delays in construction of Biloxi's new stadium meant the Shuckers actually opened their first season on the road, including several games played back at Joe W. Davis Stadium in Huntsville before their eventual home opener in Mississippi — a strange, drawn-out handoff between two cities.

Joe W. Davis Stadium sat vacant after the Stars left, until it was converted into a soccer-specific stadium for Huntsville City FC in 2023 — the same ground where the Stars debuted with a championship in 1985 now hosting a different sport entirely.

What Makes Ours Period-Correct

Construction and accuracy. Sewn-on tackle-twill numbers and lettering where the original build called for it, era-correct fonts and colors, and true-to-original construction — every Huntsville Stars design is checked against period references before it goes live.

More Frequently Asked Questions About the Huntsville Stars

Who were the Huntsville Stars?

Huntsville, Alabama's Double-A minor league baseball franchise, playing in the Southern League from 1985 to 2014 at Joe W. Davis Stadium, before relocating to become the Biloxi Shuckers.

Why were they called the Stars?

The name reflected Huntsville's identity as a space and rocketry hub, home to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center — not a player, owner or earlier local team.

Did Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire really play for Huntsville?

Yes. Both came through the Oakland Athletics' Huntsville farm club between 1985 and 1990, before becoming the "Bash Brothers" in Oakland. Canseco was the Southern League MVP in Huntsville's 1985 championship season.

Did the Huntsville Stars ever win a championship?

Three times — 1985 (their first season, as an Oakland Athletics affiliate), 1994 (a franchise-best 81–57 record, also with Oakland), and 2001 (declared co-champions with Jacksonville after the Southern League canceled the championship series following the September 11 attacks).

Who else played for the Huntsville Stars?

A long list of major leaguers across two organizations: Terry Steinbach, Walt Weiss, Tim Belcher, Tim Hudson, Miguel Tejada and Scott Brosius in the Athletics years; Ben Grieve, Corey Hart, Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, Jonathan Lucroy, Ben Sheets and Nelson Cruz in the Brewers years, among many others.

Why is Don Mincher's number retired?

Mincher, a Huntsville native, served as the Stars' general manager from 1985 to 2001 and as part-owner from 1994 to 2001. His number 5, worn during his own major league playing career, was retired by the club on June 6, 2008.

Why did the Huntsville Stars leave town?

A Biloxi, Mississippi ownership group bought the franchise in early 2014 and relocated it to become the Biloxi Shuckers for the 2015 season, after the Stars played out their final year in Huntsville.

What happened to Joe W. Davis Stadium?

It sat empty after the Stars left for Mississippi following the 2014 season, then was converted into a soccer-specific stadium for Huntsville City FC in 2023 — the same field where the franchise debuted with a championship in 1985 now hosting a different sport.

Did any Huntsville Stars games get interrupted by no-hitters?

Several. Notable combined and individual no-hitters at Joe W. Davis Stadium include an August 1992 effort against Birmingham, a 1993 no-hitter by Tanyon Sturtze against Chattanooga, a 2008 seven-inning no-hitter by David Welch, and a five-pitcher combined no-hitter in 2012, both also against Chattanooga.

How many Huntsville Stars products does Royal Retros carry?

Three — a jersey in five colorways, a T-shirt in four colorways, and an unstructured hat. A small collection built around one of the deepest alumni rosters in Double-A history.

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The Huntsville Stars at Royal Retros — Authentic Throwbacks. Custom Names & Numbers. Sizes S–5XL.