Ralph Rowe
Ralph Emanuel Rowe was an American outfielder and manager in minor league baseball, and a coach at the Major League level. A native of Newberry, South Carolina, Rowe threw right-handed, batted left-handed, stood tall and weighed.
He was signed at age 17 by the Cleveland Indians after graduating from Newberry High School in 1942. In 1958, he played for the Charlotte Hornets, a Washington Senators affiliate, and moved his family to Charlotte, where they lived until 1974. While living in Charlotte, he was a player-coach for the Hornets in 1961, and managed the 1969 Hornets to the Double-A Southern League championship. He lived in Newberry from 1974 until his death in 1996 at age 71.
Rowe's professional career got off to a rousing start in 1942, when he batted.357 for the Thomasville Hi-Toms, a Cleveland affiliate in the Class D North Carolina State League. But he lost the next four full seasons to military service and, despite batting.360 and leading the 1948 Class B Tri-State League in runs batted in, he spent most of his playing career at the Double-A level. Rowe's career reached its apex with a 14-game trial with the Los Angeles Angels of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League in 1949. He played in the farm systems of the Indians, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox and the Senators through 1958, then became a manager in the Washington/Minnesota Twins farm system in 1959–71, winning four league championships. His overall record was 836–757.
He finally reached the Major Leagues as a coach, serving for four seasons with the Twins as their third base coach, and four more as the batting coach of the Baltimore Orioles. He was a member of the Orioles' staff during their 1983 world championship season. Rowe also served as a roving minor league batting coach for the Twins, Orioles, and, after 1984, the Montreal Expos.
