The Lafayette Aviators are a
summer collegiate baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...
team based in
Lafayette, Indiana
Lafayette ( ) is a city in and is the county seat of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States, located northwest of Indianapolis and southeast of Chicago. According to the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of Lafayette ...
. They are a member of the Eastern Conference of the summer collegiate
Prospect League. The Aviators play at
Loeb Stadium in Columbian Park in Lafayette, which opened in May 2021.
The Aviators won their first Prospect League championship in 2017, defeating the
Butler BlueSox in a best-of-3 series.
The Aviators play in the Prospect League's Eastern Conference – Northeast Division along with the
Champion City Kings,
Chillicothe Paints, and
Johnstown Mill Rats.
History
The Aviators franchise was originally based in
Jamestown, New York
Jamestown is a city in southern Chautauqua County, New York, United States. The population was 28,712 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Situated between Lake Erie to the north and the Allegheny National Forest to the south, Jamesto ...
, where it operated as the
Jamestown Jammers during the 2015 season. The Jammers' owners,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...
-based MKE Sports & Entertainment, opted to move its Prospect League team to Lafayette and establish a new Jammers team in the
Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League in 2016, with distance (Jamestown was well outside the Prospect League's Midwestern footprint while the PCPBL's footprint was much closer, in Central New York) being cited as the primary reason for the move.
Prior to the 2018 season, the team was sold to National Sports Services, through its subsidiary, Lafayette Family Entertainment LLC.
The Aviators were supposed to play their 2020 season at
Purdue University
Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...
's
Alexander Field while the original
Loeb Stadium was torn down and replaced by a
new ballpark;
however, the season was suspended when Purdue closed their athletic facilities due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
.
The team was finally able to welcome spectators to their season opener at their
new stadium on June 1, 2021.
Seasons
Roster
References
Lafayette, Indiana
Amateur baseball teams in Indiana
Prospect League teams
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