He played in Major League Baseball as a backup catcher for the Detroit Tigers and the Boston Red Sox from 1990 to 1995.

Prior to playing professional baseball, Rowland attended Mendocino College in nearby Ukiah, California.

In 1989, he advanced to the Tigers' A-class Fayetteville Generals of the South Atlantic League, where he had a .272 batting average, 102 hits, and nine home runs.

He played for London for the first half of the season, where his statistics were impressive enough for a mid-season promotion to the AAA-class Toledo Mud Hens of the International League.

When he was not called up to play for the Tigers, he was a consistently solid hitting full-time catcher with Toledo reaching 136 games in 1992.

At the end of the 1995 season, Rowland was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays, where he played on their AAA affiliate Syracuse Chiefs of the International League in 1996.

While on the Chiefs, he was never called up to play for the Blue Jays and was traded to the San Francisco Giants for the start of 1997.

On April 1, just prior to the start of the 1994 season, Rich Rowland was traded to the Boston Red Sox for catcher John Flaherty.

In 1995, Rowland played again on the Red Sox, who won American League East division that year.

During the off-season, Rowland was granted free agency from the Red Sox and was acquired by the Toronto Blue Jays and later the San Francisco Giants— though he never played in the Major Leagues again.