Rodney Cline "Rod" Carew (born October 1, 1945) is a former Major League Baseball player. A member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, he is renowned for his hitting prowess. Carew played for the Minnesota Twins and the former California Angels from 1967 to 1985. He threw right-handed and batted left-handed.

Rod Carew is a zonian and was born to a Panamanian mother on a train in the town of Gatún, which, at that time, was in the Panama Canal Zone. The train was racially segregated; white passengers were given the better forward cars, while non-whites, like Carew's mother, were forced to ride in the rearward cars. When she went into labor, a Jewish physician traveling on the train, Dr. Rodney Cline, delivered the baby, who was named Rodney Cline Carew in appreciation.

At age 14, the Carews emigrated to the United States. He lived in the Washington Heights section of the borough of Manhattan, New York City. Although Rod Carew attended George Washington High School, which current MLB star left fielder Manny Ramirez also attended, he never played baseball for the high school team. Instead, Carew played sandlot (semi-pro) baseball for the Bronx Cavaliers, which is where he was discovered by Minnesota Twins' scout, Monroe Katz. Carew then signed an amateur free agent contract with the Minnesota Twins a day after graduating. Three years later, he was called up and became a teammate of first baseman Harmon Killebrew. In Panama, the National Baseball Stadium is named after him.