Riverfront Stadium - Waterloo, Iowa

Note: This is part of Matt Nelson's Ballparks of the Midwest series.

As of July 2011, I have been to minor league baseball games at more than 40 minor league ballparks. The first of which I visited at the age of nine, is Waterloo's Riverfront Stadium (which has also been known as Municipal Stadium).

Located along the Cedar River west of downtown Waterloo, the park opened in 1946 and hosted the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League and then the Midwest League. By the early 1990's the ballpark standards for the minors had been increased. With a deteriorating stadium and no money to fix it up, the Waterloo franchise in the Midwest League moved to Springfield, Illinois, in 1994 for two seasons, before relocating yet again to Lansing, Michigan. There, the franchise is still known today as the Lugnuts.

The ballpark has not hosted minor league baseball since, and likely never will again. It's former collegiate tenants, the Northern Iowa Panthers, left as well, but that was because the university dropped baseball.

One operation that continues and seems to be very successful is the Waterloo Bucks. A member of the collegiate summer league, the Northwoods League, the team has been in Waterloo since 1995 and has survived plenty of hardships.

The stadium was in lousy condition when the club arrived. Minor work was done through the years before a more signficant set of improvements started in the mid-2000's. Then the flood of 2008 hit and peaked with several feet of water in the ballpark. Since that time new clubhouses, offices, concession stands and restrooms have been built.

Today Waterloo is not a part of the minor league baseball ranks, but Riverfront Stadium is still home to baseball with the Northwoods League, and many of those players will go on to play professionally after their collegiate years come to a close.

Note: The book "Waterloo Diamonds" recaps the end of minor league baseball in Black Hawk County. You can read my review of the book here.