The Lafayette Aviators are a summer collegiate

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

team based in

Lafayette, Indiana Lafayette ( , ) is a city in and the county seat of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States, located northwest of Indianapolis and southeast of Chicago. West Lafayette, on the other side of the Wabash River, is home to Purdue University, whi ...

. They are a member of the Eastern Conference of the summer collegiate

Prospect League The Prospect League is a collegiate summer baseball league comprising teams of college players from North America and beyond. All players in the league must have NCAA eligibility remaining in order to participate. So as to maintain their colleg ...

. 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 The Butler BlueSox are a collegiate summer baseball team based in Butler, Pennsylvania, in the United States. They are a member of the Tri-State Collegiate League and were formerly a member of the East Division of the summer collegiate Prospect ...

in a best-of-3 series.

History

The Aviators franchise was originally based in

Jamestown, New York Jamestown is a city in southern Chautauqua County, in the U.S. state of New York. The population was 28,712 at the 2020 census. Situated between Lake Erie to the north and the Allegheny National Forest to the south, Jamestown is the largest pop ...

, where it operated as the

Jamestown Jammers The Jamestown Jammers were a minor league baseball team based in Jamestown, New York from 1994 until 2014. The team was the Short-Season A classification affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates and played in the New York–Penn League. The team playe ...

during the 2015 season. The Jammers' owners,

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at th ...

-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 The Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League (PGCBL) is a 16-team collegiate summer baseball league founded in 2010. As of 2022, all teams are within New York (state). All players in the league must have NCAA eligibility remaining in order to pa ...

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 land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

'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, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. 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 {{Indiana-sport-stub