The Waterloo Bucks is a baseball team in Waterloo, Iowa. It is a member of the Northwoods League, a collegiate summer baseball league. Their home games are played at the Riverfront Stadium in Waterloo, Iowa. The team was founded in 1995, making them one of the longest continually operating teams in the league.
History Riverfront Stadium, built in 1946, had previously hosted Midwest League teams such as the Waterloo Hawks and the Waterloo Diamonds, who had played there as recently as 1993.
After the departure of the Diamonds, the nascent Northwoods League added the Bucks as the league's first expansion team, going from 5 teams in 1994 to 6 in 1995. In the Bucks' first season, they set a league attendance record of 28,745 fans. In their second season, 1996, the Bucks hosted the league All-Star game and also defeated the Rochester Honkers to claim their first Northwoods League title. In 2002, the Bucks defeated the Brainerd Mighty Gulls and claimed their second league title.
On September 29, 2014, The Cedar Rapids Ball Club, Inc. announced that it had officially purchased and taken over operations of the team. The Cedar Rapids Ball Club, Inc. is also the owner of Cedar Rapids Kernels.
In 2020, six Northwoods League teams cancelled their season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For those teams that did play, instead of playing within their usual divisions, they played in hub regions, with some creating temporary teams. The Bucks played within a 5-team Minnesota-Iowa pod, and finished the season with the best record of the five, capturing the Minnesota-Iowa Region Championship.
Waterloo Bucks in MLB The following is a list of former Bucks who have played in Major League Baseball.
Name Year(s) with Bucks MLB accolades Dakota Bacus 2011 Brandon Bantz 2007 Clint Barmes 1999/2000 NL Rookie of the Month (2005) Jonah Bride 2015 Willie Collazo 1999 Duncan Davitt 2020/2021 Jeff Duncan 1998 Dane Dunning 2014 World Series Champion () Ryan Goins 2008 Dan Jennings 2006/2007 James Jones 2008 Jimmy Journell 1997/1999 Kevin Kaczmarski 2012/2014 Jason Krizan 2009 Kyle Leahy 2016/2017 Brycen Mautz2021 Zach McKinstry 2015 American League All-Star (2025), Silver Slugger (2025) Wes Obermueller 1996 Cameron Perkins 2011 A.J. Puk 2014 Evan Reed 2005 Cody Sedlock 2014 Eric Stout 2013 Curtis Thigpen 2002
References
External links Waterloo Bucks - official site Northwoods League - official site