As many know, I’m a Cleveland Browns fan. (I’ll wait for the laughter, sympathetic sighs, and/or sarcastic remarks running through some people’s minds.) Okay, back to business.

As a Browns fan, I’ve become used to the revolving door of change in quarterbacks, coaches, general managers, and other team personnel. For about 20 years, Browns fans have been put in a position of “wait and see,” to know if the new people and plans will finally work out.

Many fans have voiced opinions, loudly and often, on sports talk radio and television programs, Twitter, Facebook, in letters to sports pages of newspapers, and anywhere else today’s fans vent their frustrations to what’s happening with their favorite sports teams.

This type of reaction also takes place in the political world, communities, groups people may belong to, and committees on which people sit. Everyone has an opinion about everything, and many exercise their right to express that opinion, again, loudly and often. Regarding the Browns, I’ve reached a point of just waiting it out again, hoping that someday, the powers that be are on the side of the law of averages which say you’ve got to get it right sometime.

Recently, the Jamestown Community Baseball LLC held a gathering to, what they called it, “Relaunch” baseball at Russell E. Diethrick Park Jr. for 2020, and hopefully way beyond this inaugural year. During this “Relaunch,” a new name, mascot, and logo was unveiled, which will usher in this new chapter of baseball in Chautauqua County. Not an hour after this announcement was made public, did social media explode with opinions and feelings for the introduction of the Jamestown Tarp Skunks.

There were puns and comments you’d expect, including “The name stinks,” and “Tarp Skunks reeks.” People questioned what a tarp skunk is, offering personal definitions that had nothing to do with this particular logo and name. Word spread to the Buffalo media, as their Facebook pages, and television newscasts featured their take, much of it sarcastic, including their own puns, comments, and indirect opinions of the new team in Jamestown.

In many situations of renaming, relaunching, or establishing a new identity, there’s usually a story behind what those with their heads together thought during the process. In the case of the newly born Tarp Skunks, this is no exception.

Those of us there and able to watch a brief video on this announcement regarding Jamestown Baseball, could understand that the name has some local connections to it. Silver Creek born baseball player, Howard Ehmke, who pitched, and won, Game 1 of the 1929 World Series for Connie Mack’s Philadelphia A’s team, upon retiring from baseball after the 1930 season, went into business, manufacturing canvas. One of his designs was the first infield covering, today called the tarpaulin, used in baseball today to try and save games here and there when weather interrupts the game. Through the years, tarpaulin has been shortened to the oft referred to term, tarp, the first half of the new name of the Jamestown team.

The second half of the new team’s name comes from a series of events, and the frequent presence of the often misunderstood little black critter, with the white stripe running down its back, the feared skunk.

There have been numerous times when skunks have made appearances at Municipal Stadium/College Stadium/Russell E. Diethrick Park. The video showed, and spoke of, occasions when fans, and players, scattered from seats to escape the possible spraying welcome from the little creature. So there’s a history with regard to skunks in our area.

Marketing a team isn’t an easy task. To come up with a name, logo, and mascot, research must be done on all existing trademarked logos and mascots to avoid any possibility of duplication. To be successful, you have to create something appealing to children, and adults, and it should connect to the area where the new team will be playing. (i. e. The Akron Rubber Ducks who play in the nation’s best known rubber manufacturing city.)

Personally, I like the new name, mascot, logo, and sleeve patch that will adorn each uniform. Unlike the Browns, where the jury is still out on if they got it right, I think Jamestown Community Baseball LLC got it right with this call. Give it a chance. You might like it too.