This will be the third season for the inter-collegiate Tarp Skunks squad, which plays in the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball league and is owned by a group of investors known as Jamestown Community Baseball.

This year the team has a new Director of Business and Sales Operations with the hiring of Christian Dolce in January.

Dolce tells WRFA he and his staff have been busy during the off-season getting everything ready for opening day, “Our number one goal here is to make it a great experience for fans. So, whether that’s in our merchandise store, providing a lot of merchandise, from season tickets, that aspect of it. We added on our Tarp Skunks Kids Club with our sponsors: Pepsi, Collaborative Children’s Solutions, and the Rotary Club of Jamestown. We wanted to give kids a great experience and behind the scenes we’re tying up all the loose ends and we’re ready to go to create a good experience for all our fans.”

Dolce adds that there will once again be plenty of promotions and special activities planned for this year to keep fans returning to ballpark all season long, “You come to the ballpark and there might be a promotion, there might be a giveaway. If you come to us on the weekend game, kids and parents, all fans can run the bases for free after games on the weekends. We have a number of firework games that happen after the fact. We have some more in-game stuff like $2 nights with the $2 beer and hotdogs and popcorn, as well as bleacher tickets.”

As for the team, the coach of Tarp Skunks will once again be Jamestown native Jordan Basile, who is now in his third season with the club. There will also be a few returning players on the squad, although most of them will be new players from across the country who are looking for an opportunity to sharpen their skills during the summer.

Jamestown’s regular season play begins on Saturday with a game on the road in Newark, NY. The first league game at home will a special Kids’ Day game next Wednesday, beginning at 11 a.m.

Tonight’s exhibition game begins at 6:30 p.m. and once again, all home games will be broadcast on WRFA.

For a complete broadcast schedule, visit WRFALP.com/TarpSkunks. For ticket information, visit TarpSkunks.com.

Norman Rodriguez (left) and Max Pingitore (2022 intern) are a couple of voices fans will hear on WRFA during its coverage of the Jamestown Tarp Skunks 2023 season.

JAMESTOWN, NY – The Jamestown Tarp Skunks will return to the airwaves on WRFA-LP for a third straight season in 2023.

Just like the past two seasons, all Tarp Skunks’ home games are being broadcast on at 107.9 FM, as well as streaming worldwide at the station’s website, WRFALP.com. In addition, the Tarp Skunks will also provide the in-game broadcasts for all home games that are video-stream on the team’s Youtube channel.

“We are extremely proud to continue this partnership with Jamestown Tarp Skunks for a third consecutive season. This will be a great opportunity for community members to keep up with the ball club and its performance on the field,” explained WRFA station manager Jason Sample.

The WRFA broadcast team will again feature Norman Rodriguez providing play-by-play for the majority of the games. He’ll be joined by a variety of broadcast partners including Sample, Collin Wood, and Max Pingitore. In addition, the voice of the Jamestown Red Raiders football team Tom Ames, along with Derek Abbey, will also pitch in for a couple of games this season. Studio engineers will be Gavin Paterniti and Anthony Merchant.

Past intern Collin Wood (WVU) interviews one of the Tarp Skunks during the 2021 season. Collin is back in 2023 to provide color commentary during some WRFA broadcasts.

WRFA’s Tarp Skunks coverage will also once again provide an internship program for qualifying local college students. Interns who participate learn and develop skills related to play-by-play and color commentary, player interviews, creating social media content, and more.

“The past two years we’ve had students from Huntington University, Jamestown Community College, Syracuse University, and West Virginia University participate in our internship program,” Sample explained. “This year, we are pleased to have two interns joining us throughout the season – Will Stahlsmith from St. Bonaventure University and Ethan Tyger from JCC.”

All WRFA Tarp Skunks broadcasts are made possible through funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency, and Shults Auto Group.

All Tarp Skunks home games are played at Russell E. Diethrick Jr. Park at 485 Falconer St. in Jamestown, NY. The first game of the 2023 season is an exhibition games against the Olean Oilers on Thursday, June 1.

For a complete schedule, along with ticket information, visit TarpSkunks.com. WRFA’s broadcast schedule can also be found on the Tarp Skunks page of the station website.

WRFA will once again broadcast all Jamestown Tarp Skunks home games during the 2023 season.

ABOUT JAMESTOWN TARP SKUNKS: The Jamestown Tarp Skunks are part of the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League, a 12-team collegiate summer baseball league founded in 2010 and featuring teams from across New York State. All players in the league must have NCAA eligibility remaining in order to participate.  The team is owned and operated by the Jamestown Community Baseball ownership group.   

ABOUT WRFA: WRFA is a listener supported, non-commercial, low power FM radio station provided as a public service by the Reg Lenna Center for the Arts. It is dedicated to providing access to the arts, cultural and educational programming and a forum for the discourse of both national and local public affairs. Funding for WRFA comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, corporate underwriting, and donations from individuals and groups in the community. It broadcasts at 107.9 FM in Jamestown and also streams worldwide at WRFALP.com.  

Jamestown Community Baseball

Dolce will join manager and Director of Baseball Operations Jordan Basile in leading the Tarp Skunks this season. He interned with the Tarp Skunks for one season and worked as the Assistant of Business Operations last year.

Dolce is a Jamestown native and recent graduate of John Carroll University where he earned his Bachelors of Arts and Science in Sports Studies and Athletic Administration, while minoring in Business.

In addition to his two years of working with the Tarp Skunks, Dolce has held positions working with the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, Babe Ruth World Series Baseball, John Carroll Wrestling, and the 2021 NFL Draft.

Former Director of Business and Sales Jacob Kindberg will continue to work with the Tarp Skunks as an advisor while Mike Ferguson will be brought in as a Marketing Executive focusing on sponsorship and activation.

The Jamestown Tarp Skunks are a member of the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League, a collegiate summer baseball league with teams across New York state. The Tarp Skunks will be back playing baseball this summer at Diethrick Park in June 2023.

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.

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.

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.