Rich Rollins
| Rich Rollins | |||
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Rollins in 1962.
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| Third baseman | |||
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Born: April 16, 1938 Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania |
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| MLB debut | |||
| June 16, 1961, for the Minnesota Twins | |||
| Last MLB appearance | |||
| September 26, 1970, for the Cleveland Indians | |||
| MLB statistics | |||
| Batting average | .278 | ||
| Home runs | 77 | ||
| Runs batted in | 399 | ||
| Teams | |||
| Career highlights and awards | |||
Richard John Rollins (born April 16, 1938 in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania) is an American former Major League Baseball third baseman. He played with the Minnesota Twins (1961–68), Seattle Pilots (1969), Milwaukee Brewers (1970) and Cleveland Indians (1970). During a 10-year baseball career, Rollins hit .269, 77 home runs, and 399 runs batted in.
After playing collegiate baseball at Kent State University from 1958 to 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.
After hitting .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.
Given the Twins' third base job out of spring training in 1962, Rollins responded by hitting .486 over the Twins' first 10 games. Playing in 159 games, Rollins finished the season hitting .298 with 16 home runs 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 finished eighth in the American League MVP voting and also received the most All-Star Game votes of any American League player, starting both games that year. Rollins represented 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 finished in the Top 10 in the league in 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).
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