Rich Rowland, a former Major League Baseball catcher who played for the Detroit Tigers and the Boston Red Sox, has died at the age of 62. His son, Robby Rowland, announced his father's passing.
Rowland played 98 games across six seasons in the majors from 1990 to 1995. He accumulated 240 career at-bats, hitting for a .213 batting average and a .646 OPS. He spent the first four seasons of his MLB career with the Tigers before joining the Red Sox for the final two.
His most productive season came in 1994 with Boston, where he played a career-high 46 games. During that season, he hit all nine of his career home runs while serving as the backup catcher to Damon Berryhill.
Rowland was originally drafted by the Tigers in the 17th round of the 1988 MLB draft out of Mendocino College. After six years in the Tigers' organization, he was traded to Boston. He later signed with the Toronto Blue Jays as a free agent in 1995 but was released after playing in Triple-A. He briefly played for the San Francisco Giants' Triple-A affiliate in 1996 before retiring from professional baseball.
Following his baseball career, Rowland worked in the timber industry and in woodworking with redwood, according to his biography on the Society for American Baseball Research website.
His son, Robby Rowland, also pursued a baseball career, pitching for eight seasons in the minor leagues and five seasons in the independent Frontier League. Rich Rowland's elder son, Richie, played one professional season alongside Robby in 2010.