The Detroit Stars were an American baseball team in the Negro Leagues. They played 15 seasons, from 1920-1933, and 1937.
The Detroit Stars established themselves as one of the most powerful teams in the West during the late 1910s and became a charter member of the Negro National League in 1920. The team did not fare especially well in the new league. In twelve seasons of NNL play the Stars finished no better than second in any year. The Stars' best chance at a league championship came in 1930 when they won the second-half season title, but the pennant was snatched away from them by the St. Louis Stars in the championship playoffs.
After the collapse of the Negro National League at the end of the 1931 the Stars returned to independent play for most of the 1930s. However, in 1933 the team participated in the newly reformed Negro National League and was a charter member in the Negro American League in 1937.
Throughout the 1920s the Stars made their home at Mack Park, moving to Hamtramck Stadium in 1933 and, finally, to DeQuindre Park for their single season in the Negro American League.
They spotlighted one of the great home run hitters in baseball history, Norman "Turkey" Stearnes. Another star was catcher Bruce Petway who twice threw out Ty Cobb attempting to steal bases in a Cuban game. The notorious streak hitter Pete Hill was on the squad in 1919.
In 1796 Detroit and its surrounding areas passed to the United States, and from 1805 to 1847 the town was the territorial and state capitol of Michigan.
Detroit is also considered the birthplace of techno music—techno pioneers Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson established their names in Detroit, and techno progenitors Carl Craig and Richie Hawtin (aka Plastikman) built their reputations there as well.
Detroit was also the former home of a round of the Formula One World Championship, holding a race on the streets of downtown Detroit from 1982 until 1987, after which the sanction moved from Formula One to Indycars.
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