Rich Rollins - Playing Career

Playing Career

After playing collegiate baseball at Kent State University from 1958–1960, and hitting .358 in his senior year, Rollins was signed for $6,000 as an undrafted free agent by the then Washington Senators prior to the start of the 1960 season and assigned to the Wilson Tobs in the class-B Carolina League. After hitting .341 in 62 games, Rollins was promoted to the single-A Charlotte Hornets in the South Atlantic League to start the 1961 season. His personal worst play in baseball came during his season in Charlotte. On first base when was saw a hit-and-run sign and ran for second, heard the bat, and saw the shortstop move over to cover the bag. Rollins slid, then figured the shortstop had been faking and assumed the ball had gone through for a hit. He got up, dashed for third and slid in again. Only then did he figure out that the batter had popped out to first.

Although he hit only .270 in 36 early-season games at Charlotte, he was promoted to AAA Syracuse in the International League for three games and made his major league debut on June 16 and spent the rest of the season with the Twins as a little-used bench player.

Surprisingly given the Twins' thirdbase job out of spring training in 1962, Rollins responded by hitting .486 over the Twins' first 10 games and never looked back, finishing with arguably his career year. Playing in 159 games, Rollins would finish the season hitting .298 with 16 homeruns and 96 RBI - production that would earn him the nickname, at least among his teammates, of Pie after Pittsburg Pirates Hall of Fame third baseman, Pie Traynor. Rollins would finish eighth in the American League MVP voting and would also received the most All-Star Game votes of any American League player, starting both games that year. Rollins would represent the Twins well in the games, reaching base three times in six plate appearances and scoring the AL's only run in their 3-1 loss in the July 10 game. Supporting his MVP candidacy and All-Star appearances, Rollins would finish in the Top 10 in the league in and singles (2nd), plate appearances (3rd), sacrifice flies (3rd), hits (6th), at-bats (6th), runs (7th), on-base percentage (7th), runs batted in (9th), and batting average (10th).

While he would finish third in assists by third basemen, his 28 errors were the most by any AL third baseman and second most in the league behind Detroit Tigers' infielder Dick McAuliffe. While Rollins' glove work would never be as bad, his errors would decrease from 28 to 8 over the next four seasons, his results at the plate would also decrease and despite an almost-as-good 1963 season (.307/16/61) despite an early-season broken jaw.

On June 9, 1966, in the seventh inning of a game against the Kansas City Athletics, Rollins was one of five Twins players to hit home runs. The others were Harmon Killebrew, Don Mincher, Tony Oliva and Zoilo Versalles. These five home runs still stand as a Major League record for the most home runs batted in a single inning, and were hit off starter Catfish Hunter (three) and reliever Paul Lindblad (two). In that season he would be platooning at third base with Killebrew and César Tovar, among others.

Left exposed to the 1968 Expansion Draft, Rollins would be the 26th pick of the Seattle Pilots on October 15. After backing up Tommy Harper at third, he was released by the infant Milwaukee Brewers on May 13, 1970 after starting the season hitting only .200. Rollins was immediately signed by the Cleveland Indians for which he would finish the season before retiring.

Rollins lives with his family in Akron, Ohio.