On Thursday Jamestown Community Baseball LLC held a special event at Jamestown Community College to announce the name of the new locally owned collegiate baseball team.

After a slow build up that included a video giving some backstory into how the team chose its new name, team general manager Frank Fanning announced the team’s name would be the Jamestown Tarp Skunks.

According to Fanning, the “Tarp” portion of the name is partly to represent Chautauqua County native Howard Ehmke, who pitched in the 1929 World Series and later went on to start a company that produced the original infield

The “Skunks” portion of the name to represents a  common creature at Russell E. Diethrick Park that Fanning says has made a habit of pestering and wreaking havoc on baseball team employees for decades, including living inside the infield tarp and also under the visiting bullpen’s bench.

Fanning said the settled on “Tarp Skunks” because the team wanted an unforgettable mascot that also appealed to kids.

The Jamestown Tarp Skunks will continue to play in the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League, just like the former team the Jamestown Jammers did from 2016 through 2018.  The team took 2019 off to reorganize.  Prior to 2016, the Jamestown had a team in the New York Penn League, also known as the Jammers, going back to 1994. Before then the team was known as the Jamestown Expos.

Merchandise for the Tarp Skunks can be purchased at TarpSkunks.com or at the Jock Shop.

The first home game of the 2020 season will be on June 2 at Russell E. Diethrick Jr. Park.