The WRFA broadcast team that will be providing coverage of every home game of the Jamestown Tarp Skunks are (from L to R): Norman Rodriguez, Collin Wood, Sarah Disbro, Daniel Mallea, and Jason Sample.

JAMESTOWN, NY – The Jamestown Tarp Skunks and WRFA Radio are pleased to announce a broadcast agreement for the 2021 season. The new agreement involves all Tarp Skunks’ home games being broadcast on the local airwaves at 107.9 FM, as well as streaming worldwide at the station’s website, WRFALP.com.

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

“We are so excited and fortunate to have WRFA joining us at Diethrick Park this summer to bring our games to a new audience of people who can’t be with us in person, for one reason or another. We’re just so glad that they will still have a way of following the team and enjoying Jamestown baseball again,” said Jacob Kindberg, Jamestown Tarp Skunks general manager.

WRFA’s broadcasts of the Tarp Skunks will also provide an internship program for qualifying local college students to learn and gain valuable experience with sports broadcasting and sports journalism. Interns will learn and develop skills related to play-by-play and color commentary, player interviews, and how to provide both game previews and recaps for broadcasting. By the end of the 2021 season, the interns will also have the opportunity to participate in the live broadcasts.

“When I was in college studying broadcast journalism, I remember how difficult it was to find an internship program that was specifically geared toward sports broadcasting, especially in Chautauqua County,” Sample said. “Our hope is that through this program, local college students interested in pursuing a career in sports broadcasting and journalism will gain experience and learn skills that will help them on their career path after graduation.”

The WRFA broadcast team will be comprised of Sample and Norman Rodriguez, who have 20 years of sports broadcast experience between them. In the past, Sample has covered both high school baseball and Babe Ruth World Series games, along with high school football in both Chautauqua County and Warren County, PA. Rodriguez has covered high school baseball, football and basketball games with WNY Athletics and also was the public address announcer for the Jamestown Jammers collegiate baseball team from 2016-2018. In addition, he provides play-by-play for the Jamestown Jackals semi-pro basketball team.

The 2021 interns are Sarah Disbro from Falconer, NY and studying at Huntington University, Daniel Mallea from Mayville, NY and studying at Syracuse University, and Collin Wood from Mayville, NY and studying at West Virginia University.

“It’s exciting to see community baseball return to Jamestown after a two-year hiatus and WRFA is happy to be part of that excitement, “Sample said. “The best way to enjoy baseball is to see it live and in person, but we also understand that not everyone who wants to follow the team will have the opportunity to see every home game at the ball park. That’s why we’re happy to provide a forum where fans can tune in and listen to some of those games they can’t get to in person.”

The 2021 season will serve as the inaugural season of the Jamestown Tarp Skunks after the 2020 season was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. All home games are played at Russell E. Diethrick Jr. Park at 485 Falconer St. in Jamestown, NY. The first game of the 2021 season is Thursday, June 3 and the first home game is on Thursday, June 10. For a complete schedule, along with ticket information, visit TarpSkunks.com.

“We really can’t wait to bring quality baseball and family fun back to the people of Chautauqua County. We have been hard at work making sure our fans will have the best experience possible and we hope to see everyone out at the home opener on June 10. There will be a celebratory pregame festival outside the stadium with food and live music starting at 5 p.m.,” said Kindberg.

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.  

This will be the 18th World Series that has been held in Jamestown since 1980.

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.

The Reg will reopen 3rd on 3rd Gallery in a new street level space at 5:30 p.m. Friday with a free public reception for the Instagram photo show MyJtownNY.

The MyJtownNY reception will be followed by the live event, “Candid Camera’s 8 Decades of Smiles!” with Peter Funt on the Reg stage at 7:30 p.m.

The events will allow the public to experience some of the results of renovations which began earlier this year including a transformed new lobby and concessions stand and a fresh streetscape.

The latest version of 3rd on 3rd Gallery is located in 108 E. 3rd St. (formerly the Reg Studio Theater) after seven years of existence on the third floor of the same building. The Gallery will also be a location where tickets for events at The Reg will be sold. MyJtownNY is an exhibition of photos submitted on Instagram by local community members. All of the photos were taken within the city limits and represent what Jamestown means to the contributing artist. The Gallery will open at 10 a.m. on August 3 with the reception occurring between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. Myjtownny is free and open to the public.

A well-remembered television prank filmed at College Stadium (now Russell E. Diethrick Jr. Park) in 1990 will be a featured part of Candid Camera’s 8 Decades of Smiles! with Peter Funt at the Reg Lenna Center for The Arts theater beginning at 7:30 p.m. on August 3. Peter, the son of the late creator of Candid Camera – Allen Funt – was disguised as an umpire during the prank.

Funt will host and offer a look back at 70 years of the comedy program which was first seen on television on August 10, 1948. The Jamestown Expos 1990 prank will be among many shown throughout the evening.

Tickets to the event are $5 for children aged 18 and under and $20 for adults. Seating is general admission.

Tickets to Candid Camera’s 8 Decades of Smiles! will be available in the new Reg Lenna Center for The Arts box office between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m Tuesday through Friday and also in the 3rd on 3rd Gallery. Regular Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday with the exceptions of August 1, 2 and 4 when it will close at 3 p.m. for private Lucille Ball Comedy Festival events.

Tickets may also be purchased online at reglenna.com or by calling 716.484.7070.

Reg Lenna Center for The Arts is located at 116 E. 3rd St in Jamestown, NY.

The 8-day long tournament, which features 25 games at Russell E. Diethrick Jr. Park in Jamestown, NY will feature players ages 16 to 18 and will run from Saturday, Aug. 4 to Saturday Aug. 11.

Ten teams from across the country will be on hand, from areas as far away as Bakersfield, California; Columbia Basin in Washington State; and Mobile, Alabama,

In addition there will also be the “Southern Tier” host team comprised of All Star players from both Chautauqua and Cattaraugus Counties.

This year marks the seventeenth time Jamestown has been selected to Host a World Series tournament since 1980.

Teams will arrive on Friday, Aug. 3 beginning at approximately 1 p.m. with an “Ice Breaker” picnic along with the Skills Competition and Home Run Derby at Diethrick Park, starting at 5 p.m.  The skills completion and home run derby are all free to the public and all are encouraged to attend.

Saturday, Aug. 4 begins the first official day of the tournament, which will kickoff with the World Series of Champions Parade.  The Parade will travel across 3rd Street from the 3rd Street Plaza to JHS High School with a 9 a.m. step off.

Following the parade, the 25 games of baseball that are being played at Diethrick Park will begin.  The first game between the Ohio Valley Champions – the Northwest Indiana Rippers from Crown Point, Indiana) and the Mid Atlantic Champions (West Penn from Williamsport, Pennsylvania) will begin at noon.

ALL 25 games of the World Series are free to the general public thanks to various businesses and foundations that have sponsored each day of baseball.

World Series spokesperson Kim Ecklund tells WRFA they are still looking for a few local singers to sing the National Anthem before some of the games and volunteers are a also being sought, along with at least one more host family.

For more information on the world series, visit JamestownWorldSeries.org.

The city of Jamestown, which owns the park, has been hit with $110,000 in unexpected costs related to the project due to the costly removal of lead paint that was recently discovered.

“Getting into the project, they noticed some lead-based paint that is on the ceiling of the grandstand, as well as some of the steel support beams,” Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi told WRFA Monday night. “The job was immediately shut down, we brought in an environmental consultant to evaluate the situation and put together a remediation plan and tonight the Jamestown City Council approved the change order on the project to deal with the encapsulization and remediation of the lead paint in the facilities.”

In February the city council initially approved a contract with Long Island Enterprise for $25,300  to paint the underside of the grandstand, railings and metal columns, but with the unanticipated costs, the price is now $135,000.

The city had a $50,000 fund to use toward upgrades to the ball park, but with the additional $111,700 change order that was approved Monday night, all that fund had to be depleted and, in addition, the city council had to use another $87,000 from the city’s contingency fund to pay for the remainder of the remediation cost.

“That’s why we have a contingency fund,” Teresi noted. “It’s sufficient to cover a project like this. We will be looking for other sources of funding to help defray that cost and hopefully not have to hit the contingency line of the budget for the full $87,000. But that’s the reason why there is a contingency budget and, furthermore, the need for a healthy undesignated fund balance because things of an unanticipated nature come up during the course of a year.”

Teresi added that the painting project is still on schedule and should be completed by the time the baseball season begins on June 1, when the Jamestown Jammers collegiate baseball team holds its home opener. The Babe Ruth World Series will also be played at Diethrick Park later this summer in August, with teams from across the United States expected to be on hand.

Highlighting the council’s voting session is a resolution for the city to enter an agreement with Empire Development of Mayville for Phase II Emergency Repair work at the Jamestown Police Department. The cost of the work is to not exceed $470,900.

The main entrance of the Jamestown Police Station on E. Second St. has been closed since the flooding that occurred last fall when the contractors for the Tracy Plaza renovation project didn’t properly secure the area, allowing rainwater to pour into the station.

City officials expect the main entrance to be reopened around the beginning of May.

Meanwhile another resolution focuses on spending $282,700 on the W. second Street Public Piazza Project in front of the National Comedy Center.  The contractor for that project is R. Patti Concrete of Jamestown. Funding for the project comes from a state grand along with local foundation funding.

And the city council will also act on a resolution to spend $68,950 to repair the Concession Room at Diethrick Park, with Jamestown Roofing doing the repair work.

Monday’s Council Meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. in city hall and is open to the public.

Jamestown native and Jammers head coach Anthony Barone will start his second year with the team, which is now playing in the Perfect Game League after spending 2015 in the Prospect League. Just like last year the team will be comprised of college players looking to sharpen and hone their skills during the summer months.

Jamestown will play a 51-game schedule this season and will be members of the Perfect Game League’s west division, joining the Adirondack Trail Blazers, Elmira Pioneers, Geneva Red Wings, Newark Pilots, Utica Brewers and Victor RailRiders.

The league’s east division will feature the Oneonta Yellow Jackets, the Albany Dutchmen, Amsterdam Mohawks, Glens Falls Dragons, Mohawk Valley and the Saugerties Stallions.

Wednesday’s home opener will begin at 7 p.m. when Jamestown hosts the Newark. The Jammers will also play at home on Thursday and Friday this week.

For more information on the Jammers and a complete season schedule visit jamestownbaseball.com.