Rich Hand

Richard Allen Hand (born July 10, 1948) is an American retired professional baseball player. Hand was a right-handed pitcher who played all or parts of four seasons in Major League Baseball for the Cleveland Indians, Texas Rangers and California Angels. Born in Bellevue, Washington, he graduated from Lincoln High School in Seattle and attended University of Puget Sound.[1] He was listed as 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) tall and 195 pounds (88 kg).

Hand's professional career lasted for six seasons after he was selected by Cleveland in the first round of the supplementary phase of the 1969 Major League Baseball Draft. He made the Indians' 1970 roster out of spring training after only one year of minor league experience. His most productive seasons were 1970 and 1972, when he recorded over 100 strikeouts and logged over 150 innings pitched in each year.[1]

Altogether he worked in 104 games pitched in the majors, with 78 starting assignments, and compiled a 24–39 win–loss record and a 4.01 earned run average. In 487​¹⁄₃ innings pitched, he allowed 452 hits and 250 bases on balls, with 278 strikeouts. As a starter, he threw three complete games and two shutouts; he registered three saves as a relief pitcher.

Alvin Dark, Hand's manager with the Indians, feared that he may have overused Hand during his rookie season. On June 16, Hand had allowed one run in eight innings. Dark was planning to pull him after the eighth, but Hand responded, "Aw, c'mon, Skip. Let me finish. I gotta finish a game." Up to that point, he had not thrown a complete game. "And like an idiot I said okay," Dark wrote in his autobiography. "He wound up throwing about 150 pitches that day. The next time he was due to pitch he came to me complaining of a sore elbow...Rich Hand wasn't the same after that."[2][3]

Hand and his wife Susan live in the Fort Worth area.