Ahead of Players’ Weekend, Major League Baseball is highlighting the off-field interests of its players.
CINCINNATI -- During big league Spring Training ahead of his first professional season for the Reds, Rhett Lowder was one of many players on the team who took part in the clubhouse bonding tradition, "Reds Got Talent."
Lowder's talent? Drawing.
"At that time, I hadn't drawn in a while but I drew a picture of [catcher] Luke Maile that was pretty good," Lowder said. "But I hid it underneath a couple of sheets and did a caricature live during the talent show. I'm not good at caricatures but I made it funny and exaggerated some of his things and talked through to the crowd and everyone thought it was funny.
"After that, I flipped it and said, 'This is what I've actually got for you.' Everyone loved it."
The seventh overall selection in the 2023 Draft, Lowder made his Major League debut on Aug. 30, 2024, and had six starts before being sidelined with injuries for all of 2025 and returning this season.
Admittedly, taking the time to draw and sketch can go through various lapses and phases.
"I'll take 6-8 months or a year off and then pick it up pretty hard. A lot of it was during COVID when I had a ton of time. I was hanging out, painting and drawing," Lowder said.
Drawing is a skill the 24-year-old Lowder began developing in high school while growing up in Albemarle, N.C., a small town outside of Charlotte.
"I have two older brothers, who were both pretty into art," Lowder explained. "So when I got to freshman year of high school, my brother was in art class as a senior. I was like, 'Yeah, I'm going to do it.' My best friend's dad was the art teacher. I kind of just took it every semester and got better. I wanted to be better than my brother and just kept going."
Not surprising for a Major League pitcher who competes for a living, even art can be a competition.
"You always want to be better than your older siblings at pretty much everything," he said. "That was just something that we shared. And he's still better than me. He still does it a lot more than I do."
Lowder's art skills have grown to other mediums that he will occasionally dabble in, including painting or using charcoal. But mainly, his preferred tools are a graphite pencil and sketchbook. They're easier to transport amid the nomadic lifestyle of a big leaguer and don't require having a studio space, and it's easier to make time to draw or sketch. And of course, there rarely are messes to clean up.
Currently in another of his idle periods of drawing, Lowder's last work was one of him and his fiancée, Kimball. It was completed during the last offseason after he worked on it any time she happened to be out of the house. He presented it to her just moments before he proposed.
Several sketchbooks are kept at Lowder's home and he'll occasionally take one on the road during baseball season. It can be a great way to unwind from the grind.
"It definitely allows you to escape for a little bit," Lowder said. "Because it takes so much effort and focus. Your mind gets drawn into your task and you can work on it for hours and hours at a time. It's definitely nice. During the season, you can't go crazy because your hands can get pretty tired, but just sketching here and there, when you have that ability and get bored, you can just let your creativity flow a little bit. It's nice to fall back on."