To suggest that it’s unique would be a huge understatement, but that’s exactly what general manager Frank Fanning and members and investors of Jamestown Community Baseball LLC desired as they look ahead to the 2020 season.

“We wanted a mascot that appealed to kids, a name that when people see it they’re not going to ignore it,” Fanning said.

So Wednesday morning Fanning, with an assist from a 12-minute video, announced to a gathering of more than 70 people at the Carnahan Theater on the campus of Jamestown Community College that the team name moving forward will be the “Tarp Skunks.”

“We can’t promise the playoffs,” Fanning said, ” … What we can promise is a new experience, and it was about time for fans in Jamestown to come to the ballpark … and expect something very different than what they remember.”

Hanover historian Vince Martonis is pictured holding Tarp Skunks merchandise. The “tarp” portion is because Silver Creek’s Howard Ehmke started a tarpaulin company to cover baseball infields. Submitted Photo.

Until baseball went dark in the city in 2019, the franchise that occupied Diethrick Park had been known as the Jammers, both as a minor league team in the New York-Pennsylvania League from 1994 through 2014 and as a member of collegiate leagues from 2015-18. Prior to 1994, Jamestown’s tenant at the Falconer Street stadium was known as the Falcons for most of four decades and the Expos for about 20 years after that.

Fanning admits that, for some, it will take a while to warm up to the new name, but he insists that skunks and baseball have a long connection. In fact, members of the stadium’s grounds crew, as well as front office personnel, have plenty of memories of chance encounters with their fragrant “friends.”

George Sisson said in the video that he has had several encounters with skunks when he was a member of the Jammers’ front office.

“We were in the middle of a home game,” Sisson recalled. “The weather was beautiful, one of those chamber-of-commerce nights where you really can’t screw anything up. In the middle of the game we saw the whole visiting bullpen just scatter. All of a sudden, one young man comes running toward the visitors’ dugout yelling, ‘Coach, Coach, we need somebody.”

Once Sisson arrived down the right-field line, he quickly understood what all the chaos was about.

Jamestown Tarp Skunks general manager Frank Fanning, left, interviews Matt from the Hawk Creek Wildlife Center in East Aurora on Wednesday at the launch of the baseball team’s new name at Jamestown Community College. Matt is holding Rascal, the skunk, who had his scent glads removed and was no threat to the crowd in attendance. Photo by Scott Kindberg.

“There was a skunk underneath (the bullpen) bench,” he said.

Sisson’s other up-close-and-personal skunk experience came as he was laundering team uniforms in the clubhouse in the wee morning hours only to be joined by a couple of four-legged friends who sought refuge near the washer and dryer.

“It was two hours of George and the skunks at Diethrick Park,” Sisson said.

Added Fanning: “The best thing, at the end of the day, is that it’s a cute, small, underdog animal. It’s a name that can’t be ignored.”

Fanning also said the rebranding, with a huge assist from Brandiose, a San Diego-based sports marketing company, was a “chance to start over fresh and change the experience for people.”

“We owe a lot to the people who came before us, (but) … it just kind of came down to, ‘Well, here are our numbers; here are our numbers if we spend a lot of money in rebrand; here are our numbers if we don’t spend a lot of money on rebrand; here’s the last couple years of attendance; here’s the last couple years of merchandise sales; and here’s the last couple years of what we perceived — through attendance figures — to be the general interest.'”

Partnering with Brandiose, which has played a role in rebranding the likes of the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, the New Orleans Baby Cakes, the Rocket City Trash Pandas and the Vermont Lake Monsters, only made sense, he said.

“(Brandiose) has got a formula and this is what works based on 50-plus minor league teams,” Fanning said. “If you look at their last few rebrands, they’ve set merchandise records. Their track record is incredible. … They are the best. … We’re trying to re-launch a baseball team and excite kids and families. We’re going to call in the people who do it the best.”

In a bit of serendipity, the Tarp Skunks will also wear a uniform patch that will honor the memory of Silver Creek native, former Major League pitcher and Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame inductee Howard Ehmke. Ehmke won Game 1 of the 1929 World Series with the Philadelphia Athletics, but he also — upon his retirement — started a tarpaulin company to cover baseball infields.

“The Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame is very excited to learn that the new name of the baseball team that will be playing in Diethrick Park includes the word “tarp” as an honor and homage to our inductee,” said Randy Anderson, CSHOF president.

Fanning said he received the go ahead to use Ehmke’s name from Bob Rosania, the chief executive officer of Philadelphia-based Ehmke Manufacturing Company Inc.

“I was always a big historian growing up, so when the father of the infield tarp was proven to be from our area, it’s just been a really fun, heart-warming thing as part of our rebrand where we honor (Ehmke) as well as the funny animal.”

Fanning said the uniforms will be unveiled in February and, in addition to the on-the-field activities, Fanning said the Tarp Skunks will be a “reciprocating entity.”

“We have a reading program we’re working on with the Chautauqua Striders where the mascot will go every week to help read a book to the kids,” he said. ” … It’s about way more than just baseball. It’s not just about the two months of on-field. (While) that’s our time to shine, the other 10 months that we’re in this town, we want it to be as exciting for people as the season. That’s the philosophy in this office right now.”

The season runs from the end of May to the end of July and Fanning predicts that baseball fans will find the Tarp Skunks “very entertaining.”

“It might take a while, but the community, I think, will grasp it and, in 12 to 18 months, we’ll be so ingrained in this community to the point where if you see a skunk in your yard, you’ll be like, ‘Ha, the baseball team.’ It’s going to be a cool thing we can claim.”

Sisson agrees.

“I know it sounds crazy, I know the idea is crazy, but it’s really where the whole business of branding and how it affects the little people in our community to the wiley old veterans in the community,” he said. “The biggest thing is we can rally around the skunk … and we can be pretty stinking good at doing it.”