Richard Hilton Rand (March 7, 1931 – January 22, 1996) was an American

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Modern professional ...

catcher Catcher is a position in baseball and softball. When a batter takes their turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the ( home) umpire, and receives the ball from the pitcher. In addition to this primary duty, the ca ...

who appeared in 72 games in

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

during all or part of three seasons (, and ) for the

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...

and Pittsburgh Pirates. Born in

South Gate, California South Gate is the 19th largest city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, with . South Gate is located southeast of Downtown Los Angeles. It is part of the Gateway Cities region of southeastern Los Angeles County. The city was inc ...

, he threw and batted

right-handed In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to it being stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subjecti ...

, stood tall and weighed . Rand's pro career stretched over 12 seasons (1949–1959 and 1961). Signed initially by the Cardinals, he had two late-season trials with the Redbirds, collecting 12 hits in 41

at bats In baseball, an at bat (AB) or time at bat is a batter's turn batting against a pitcher. An at bat is different from a plate appearance. A batter is credited with a plate appearance regardless of what happens during their turn at bat, but a batt ...

( .293) in a dozen games—all of them as the club's starting catcher."Dick Rand"

Retrosheet Retrosheet is a nonprofit organization whose website features box scores of Major League Baseball (MLB) games from 1906 to the present, and play-by-play narratives for almost every contest since the 1930s. It also includes scores from every major ...

St. Louis traded him to Pittsburgh after the 1956 minor-league season, and Rand spent all of 1957 with the Pirates, backing up starting catcher

Hank Foiles Henry Lee Foiles Jr. (born June 10, 1929) is an American former professional baseball player. He played as a catcher in Major League Baseball between and . He had an eleven-year career for seven different teams in Major League Baseball. He was ...

; he played in 60 contests and started 34 behind the plate. But he batted only .219 and returned to the minors for the rest of his active career. In the majors, Rand batted .240 lifetime with 35 hits, including three doubles, one

triple Triple is used in several contexts to mean "threefold" or a " treble": Sports * Triple (baseball), a three-base hit * A basketball three-point field goal * A figure skating jump with three rotations * In bowling terms, three strikes in a row * ...

and two home runs; he had 13

runs batted in A run batted in (RBI; plural RBIs ) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if the ba ...

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rand, Dick 1931 births 1996 deaths Columbus Jets players Columbus Red Birds players Dallas Rangers players Fresno Cardinals players Houston Buffaloes players Major League Baseball catchers Omaha Cardinals players People from South Gate, California Baseball players from Los Angeles County, California Pittsburgh Pirates players Pocatello Cardinals players Rochester Red Wings players St. Louis Cardinals players Winston-Salem Cardinals players