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.

The move to the Perfect Game League comes after the Jamestown collegiate team spent one season in the Prospect League. Prior to that, Jamestown had a professional baseball team – also called the Jamestown Jammers – which played in the New York Penn League (NYPL) and which was owned by Rich Baseball Operations. Following the 2014 season, Rich Baseball opted to relocate the team to Morgantown, WV and renamed the team the West Virginia Black Bears.

While in the NYPL, the Jammers developed strong rivalries with Oneonta, Elmira, Little Falls, Geneva, Glens Falls, Utica, and Newark. Those rivalries now return and are revived with the Jammers inclusion into the Perfect Game League.

“We had spoken with the city and the current Jammers ownership group about joining the PGCBL and found this is now the time. It’s a great fit from a geographical standpoint and will revive a lot of our old rivalries,” said PGCBL President Jeff Kunion. “We are getting experienced baseball operators who know what needs to be done to entertain the Jammers fans and bring exciting and competitive baseball to Jamestown.”

The Jammers just missed the Prospect League playoffs in 2015 after losing the final game of the first half of the season. The Jammers look to rebound this year and contend for a PGCBL championship.

MKE Sports and Entertainment, LLC is the current owner of the Jammers and will be entering its second year in Jamestown.

“MKE is extremely honored and excited to be entering the PGCBL for this year and many years to come. The PGCBL brings many of the old rivalries that Jammer fans have enjoyed in previous years. We look forward to restarting those rivalries and burgeoning new ones in the PGCBL,” said Dan Kuenzi, Senior Vice President of Operations for MKE Sports and Entertainment.

The PGCBL is affiliated with Perfect Game, the largest independent scouting service in the country.  This year, more than 1,400 professional players had either worn the uniform of a PGCBL team or participated in a Perfect Game event.

City Officials and Community Leaders joined representatives from The Prospect League in welcoming a new baseball team to Jamestown for the 2015 season. Attendees included (from left to right): Randy Sweeney, Chautauqua Region Community Foundation; Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi; Mr. Baseball Russ Diethrick; Robert Schenosky, RS Entertainment marketing executive; Kevin Rhomberg, RS Entertainment co-owner; Prospect League Commissioner Bryan Wickline; and attorney Greg Peterson.

JAMESTOWN – The city of Jamestown will continue to have baseball taking place at Russell Diethrick Park, starting next May.

On Thursday, city officials joined community leaders and members of The Prospect League during an afternoon press conference at Diethrick Park to announce that a team from the league will be relocating to Jamestown. The Prospect League is an amateur summer league that features college players from throughout the country. The league itself is comprised of 12 teams and is located primarily in the Midwest. Along with New York, it also has teams in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri.

The yet-to-be-named Jamestown team will be owned by RS Entertainment – which has operated a team for the past five years in Lorain, OH. That team is now being relocated to Jamestown.

According to team and league officials, each team in the league will play a total of 60 games, with the season running from the end of May to the start of August while many of the players are on summer break from college.

Earlier this year it was announced that the Jamestown Jammers from the New York Penn League would be relocating to Morgantown WV, leaving Jamestown without a team. However, Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi said when news broke about the Jammers leaving, six different groups approached the city in hopes of bringing their team to the area. Teresi said that after consulting with several community leaders – including Jamestown’s Mr. Baseball Russ Diethrick, local attorney and Jackson Center founder Greg Peterson, and Randy Sweeney from the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation – the city settled on going with The Prospect League and RS Entertainment.

RS Entertainment is co-owned by Kevin Rhomberg, who said he is excited to be coming to Jamestown. He said that ticket prices will be similar to what fans were paying to see the Jammers, although specific prices have not yet been settled on.

He also said a new website will soon be up and running to allow fans to be season tickets at a reduced rate. Meanwhile, for more information on the prospect league, visit www.ProspectLeague.com.