Mike Buczkowski

Born and raised in South Buffalo, Mike Buczkowski attended Bishop Timon High School. He played three years of varsity baseball and hockey for the Tigers and earned All-Catholic honors as a hockey player.

Buczkowski continued his hockey career at Canisius College and served as the team captain of the Golden Griffins, but he literally had baseball in his blood. His grandfather, Huck Geary, played shortstop for the Bisons from 1935-37 and played in the Major Leagues for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1942-43.

In 1987, he returned to the world of baseball and joined the Buffalo Bisons organization during its last season at War Memorial Stadium. He held a number of roles in the team’s communications department before being named general manager of the Herd in 1993. By the time he was appointed President of Rich Baseball Operations in 2019, he had become the longest tenured general manager in the Bisons’ 140+ year history.

During Mike’s time as the Bisons general manager, the club led their league in attendance 7 times, including the International League’s all-time attendance record set in 1998. In 2001, the Bisons won the prestigious Bob Freitas Award, presented annually to a franchise for overall operational excellence, becoming the first Triple-A team to win the award twice (also in 1991).

In his current role, Buczkowski has direct oversight of the three professional teams owned by the Rich Entertainment Group: the Bisons, the Northwest Arkansas Naturals (Double-A) and the West Virginia Black Bears (Single-A).

During 2020 and 2021, he successfully managed the organization’s efforts that brought Major League Baseball and the Toronto Blue Jays to Buffalo during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 1999, Buczkowski was honored with Business First’s “Forty Under-40” Award and was named Parochial Baseball League’s Man of the Year in 2000. Buczkowski was inducted into the Bishop Timon High School Sports Hall of Fame in 2010, and into the school’s John Timon Society in 2022. In 2019, he was named the International League Executive of the Year and in 2024 was inducted into the Buffalo Baseball Hall of Fame.