Rich Rowland was an up and coming catcher for the
Tigers. He was a defensive stand out
leading the International League in fielding percentage and in throwing out
base runners while at Toledo. But he was
about a .250 hitter in AAA. Still the
Tigers brought him up in 1990 at the age of 26.
He got in 7 games and hit .158.
In 1991 he was in Toledo and had some problems with his back but still
hit .272 for the Mud Hens and was again a late season call up. In 4 games he hit his major league career
high of .250. He was again solid
defensively in 1992 and while posting good power in Toledo (25 homers and 82
RBI’s) he hit only .235. He was again
called up in September and in 6 games hit .214.
He led Toledo in homers in 1993 and hit .268 and was called up in August
to Detroit. But in 21 games he hit
.217. In the spring of 1994 Rich was
traded to the Red Sox for catcher John Flaherty. Rich played two seasons with the Sox and hit
.218 in 60 games. Rich continued to play
in the minors through 1997 for the Blue Jays and Giants and even pitched in a
game in the minors. But after the Red
Sox he nave made it back toe the bigs.
Ernie Harwell used to talk about Rich because Rich was a lumberjack in
the off seasons and Ernie talked about how he once asked Rich if the red woods
of California (Rich’s home state) did not have deep roots. Rich replied that they did not. In fact they were rather shallow but that the
trees spread out their roots and intertwined with other trees so they all
supported each other. Ernie would use
that analogy in his baseball ministry.
Today Rich has two sons in the minors.
Ken Szotkiewicz had his number retired by the Tigers. Ok, he had it retired by the entire
majors. Ok, so he wore 42 and it was
retired for Jackie Robinson. But still,
Ken did have his number retired! He was
signed out of Georgia Southern University in 1968 as a shortstop. He was on the Tigers 40 man roster for 1970
despite having had knee surgery. He was
on the roster at the beginning of the 1970 season as a back up for starting
shortstop, Cesar Gutierrez. He got
into 47 games that season and had three homers.
However, he only had 9 total hits in 84 at bats for a .107 average. In July he went on the DL with a strained
knee and was there until September. While a good fielder, .107 will not cut it in
the majors and a player with a known bad knee is not something the majors will
want to carry around. Ken never got back
to the majors after 1970. He was able to
hang on in the minors through 1974 but never played a whole season. At the age of 27 Ken was done with baseball,
or rather, baseball was done with Ken. Ken
had one baseball card made of him in 1971.
It is kinda valuable as it is a “hi-number”. Baseball cards used to be sold by “series”
where the company, Topps, would sell the first 132 cards in the set at the
beginning of the season and every month or so release another series. By the end of the season kids were turning
their attention to other sports like football and buying fewer baseball cards. So the higher series would be printed less
than the first. Thus the “hi-numbers”
would be considered rare. Ken has card
number 749 out of a set of 752.
Jack “Lucky” Lohrke was never a Tiger. But he has a very interesting or maybe
alarming nickname. He served in the army
in WWII and was in the Battle of the Bulge.
Twice, comrades beside him were killed during combat. On his way to California to be discharged from
the army he was bumped from the flight by a Colonel. The plane crashed with no survivors. He made it back to baseball and was in the
minors in 1946 with the Spokane Indians.
He was traveling on the team bus when he learned he had been called up
by the parent club, the San Diego Padres, of the Pacific Coast League. He got off the bus at a stop to hitchhike
back to Spokane to catch a plane to San Diego.
About 15 minutes later, the bus he had been on ran off the mountainside
and crashed. Nine players were
killed. Jack went on to play 7 years in
the majors with the New York Giants and Philadelphia Phillies from 1947 to 1953
but he did not relish the moniker “Lucky” and would refuse to talk about it
later in life.
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