If You Build It, They Will Come

 We are down to our final two baseball teams this year, and just as expected it will be Houston vs. Atlanta ..... wait its actually Texas vs. Arizona?  Crazy year, the Twins won a playoff game and Max Scherzer is in the World Series with Texas instead of the Mets. As far as Iowa Connections go, we have 1 connection between the two teams, and its Dane Dunning of the Texas Rangers.  Dane pitched for the Waterloo Bucks back in 2014.   However, lets dig deeper and see who on these teams has those secondary connections.  By that, I mean players who played minor league ball for one of the Iowa minor league teams.  They include teams from Cedar Rapids, Burlington, Quad Cities, Clinton and of course Iowa (Cubs).   Note: I used Baseball reference to pull the list of players who played for each team this season Note: Italics for coaches, bold for current active roster/staff

 Its been a few weeks now, but 2023 Topps Series I is out and its time to find the Iowa Connections.  Connections include players born in Iowa, played semi-pro ball in Iowa, played for a club team in Iowa, or played in the Field of Dreams game.  #95 Jonah Bride - Waterloo Bucks #97 Brandon Hughes - Field of Dreams Game #128 Alec Bohm - Iowa Select Black #T88-92 Ryne Sandberg - Iowa Cubs Manager BSA-AP A.J. Puk - Cedar Rapids BSA-DD Dane Dunning - Waterloo Bucks #97 SSP Brandon Hughes - Field of Dreams Game #120 SSP Patrick Wisdom - Field of Dreams Game #54 SSP Marcus Stroman - Field of Dreams Game #183 SSP Seiya Suzuki - Field of Dreams Game #308 SSP Christopher Morel - Field of Dreams Game #33 SSP Kyle Farmer - Field of Dreams Game

 Today's group includes players from Iowa's three semi-minors teams: Clarinda A's, Waterloo Buck and Sioux City Explorers.  These teams are not associated with any major league team, and often have players from the college ranks playing summer ball or players trying to stay with baseball and hoping for another chance. I'm also going to add two players that played Perfect Game baseball in Iowa.  Its a small category because most of the players who make up those high school summer teams live in Iowa and were caught in the Iowa born net.  But these two (Alec Bohm, Johnny Ray) lived outside the state and played one summer in Iowa. I spent a bunch of last year tracking down rosters to look for players on these teams.  I'm still not finished with Waterloo, and I don't have complete rosters for both Clarinda and Sioux City, but I was able to find lists of players who made the majors from them. Overall I added 915 cards from this group, help enormously by Chuck Knoblauc...