Local group, Jamestown Community Baseball LLC, took ownership of the former Jamestown Jammers in 2019 with plans to have the first season start in 2020. However, the league canceled that season due to the Pandemic.

The Tarp Skunks are currently 4 and 1 for the season. They play the Batavia Muckdogs at 7pm tonight. Tune to 107.9 WRFA for our first live broadcast of the game or you can stream online at wrfalp.com.

Jamestown Tarp Skunks General Manger Frank Fanning (right) announced on Wednesday he would be departing the team at the end of June.

JAMESTOWN – The Jamestown Tarp Skunks collegiate baseball team will soon be searching for a new General Manager.

On Wednesday current team manager Frank Fanning announced he was leaving the team after one year at the helm. During his tenure, Fanning was responsible for helping to launch the new name and brand of the team. But due to COVID-19, he was never able to actually see the ball club play.

“Baseball is sometimes a season-by-season sport for players, as we all know. And sometimes it is season-by-season for members of the front office as well. Even when there’s no season,” Fanning said in a press release sent out by the team on Wednesday afternoon. “For the most part, I was signed for one year to turn the franchise around, and I made good on my promise. The current global climate plays a factor into my decision too, it’s time for me to return home.”

From 2016 to 2018 the Jamestown Jammers collegiate baseball team took the field at Diethrick Park. But the ownership of the team opted to not continue for the 2019 season. They handed the team over to the newly created Jamestown Community Baseball ownership group, and it hired Fanning last year to help prepare the team for the 2020 Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League season after it took the 2019 season off.  Part of that preparation including a new team name and brand.

On Jan. 22, the new Tarps Skunks name and logo was announced, helping to put the city and the county in the national spotlight. According to Fanning, there were over 3 million impressions for Jamestown, NY and Chautauqua County, NY on social media and the brand quickly took off with fans eager to purchase hats and shirts in support the team.

“I’m proud of the splash that the Tarp Skunks made. I so appreciate the renewed fan interest in baseball. Every day I was here I had the fans in mind – especially the children and families,” Fanning said, adding that Tarp Skunk merchandise has outsold the last five total years of the prior grape logo, and “many more millions of impressions have been made since the relaunch.”

“The ‘Tarp Skunks’ brand is a gift to Jamestown. It is so baseball-universal, and the groundwork is laid for the management group to continue to do something special with it. It requires serious work and attention to sustain,” Fanning said. “There were obviously challenges, but I always felt like I could overcome anything. Now, it’s up to the Board of Directors to maintain that momentum and continue the positive trend. The goal was to give Jamestown something it never had before. Here it is. I wish them luck.”

Fanning plans to fulfill his July 1st memorandum of understanding. Fanning is not aware of any job postings at this time. Visit TarpSkunks.com for more information on the club.

On Wednesday the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League announced it was cancelling the 2020 season, just three weeks prior to the start.

The cancellation was due to COVID-19.

Jamestown manager Frank Fanning said the team sympathizes with baseball fans in Jamestown who will have to wait at least one more summer before baseball is played at Diethrick Park.

This was to be the tarp skunks first season in Jamestown after the former collegiate team – the Jamestown Jammers – folded at the end of the 2018 season. A local group of investors then organized in 2019 to establish a new ownership group – Jamestown Community Baseball LLC – and the new team, Jamestown Tarp Skunks, was introduced earlier this year with much fanfare.

The Perfect Game league is a summer amateur league featuring college players from around the country. It is comprised of 13 teams in upstate New York.

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.

(Image courtesy of City of Jamestown/ Mayor Sam Teresi Facebook page)

JAMESTOWN – A special event took place Monday afternoon at Russell E. Diethrick Jr. Park in Jamestown to usher in a new era of locally owned baseball in Jamestown.

Jamestown Community Baseball LLC boar president Russ Diethrick was on hand and joined by several other officials to signs a lease transfer establishing the non profit group as the primary tenant of the ballpark that bears his name.

The move, combined with a transfer of team ownership from the previous owners to the locally owned group, means the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League will return to the city next year after taking this season off.

JAMESTOWN – The Jamestown Jammers collegiate league baseball team won’t be taking the field in 2019.

That was the news delivered Wednesday during a press conference at Russell E. Diethrick Jr. Park as the owners of the collegiate team – ROC Ventures – announced the team would be going dark next year, with a plan to transfer ownership as a donation to a soon-to-be-created nonprofit group called Jamestown Community Baseball LLC in time for the start of the 2020 season.

Officials and community members announced on Wednesday, Oct. 25 that the Jamestown Jammers would be transitioning to new ownership and as a result the team would go dark iin 2019 to reorganize.

Jamestown Jammers Manager and community relation representative for ROC Ventures Anthony Barone said the decision had nothing to do with finances as the team had strong community support through sponsorship and attendance. Instead, the decision was because the Milwaukee-based owners wanted to focus on another baseball team closer to its home base.

“ROC Ventures and its other sports and entertainment interests are based in the Milwaukee area. We’ve created a new professional baseball team called the Milwaukee Milkmen. They’ll begin playing in the legendary American Association, a professional baseball league during the 2019 season,” Barone said. “It’s a great opportunity for ROC to take aim at a new venture in a professional atmosphere.”

The Jammers play in the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League – a summer league intended to help college players hone their skills while they are out of school. Led by Barone, the Jammers won the league pennant this past summer.

PGCBL president Robert Julian said that while local interests were hoping to have the ownership transfer in time for the 2019 season, his suggestion was to let the team go dark for one year in order to allow for the development of a sound business plan to ensure success in future years.

“The prudent thing for this community would be to go dark in 2010, which is not uncommon in our league. It is an important component built into our league bylaws,” Julian explained. “It is a tactic that allows communities and teams to reorganize and do so under a circumstance where they’re not under tremendous financial and management pressure to field a team immediately when the circumstances are not fully in place.”

Julian said the annual operating budget for a team in the league is about $150,000 to $200,000. He said because a nonprofit group would be taking over, it may be easier to run the team because the drive for profit is taken out of the equation.

“We will work with the city and the local group on the timing and the transition to ensure the new owners have every chance to build a successful team and product here at Diethrick Park,” Barone said.

Barone and Julian were joined by Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi, baseball enthusiast and local attorney Greg Peterson, Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame director Randy Anderson, and retired city parks director and long-time baseball supporters Russ Diethrick, who the stadium is named after.

The stadium is owned by the city and Mayor Teresi said his executive budget released earlier this month already accounted for the Jammers going dark in 2019, although those details were never brought up in his budget presentation on Oct. 9, nor when the city parks department met with the city council to go over the budget numbers on Oct. 15.

Peterson also said that anyone who wants to assist with the new nonprofit group should reach out, adding that their help will be needed and appreciated since it will be a community-wide effort to make the new ownership group a success.

The group is expected to be created and a new business plan in place by the middle of next spring.

“The process is already under way to create the appropriate structure. Conversations are under way with folks to add to the group on both counsel and also on an investor basis,” Teresi said.