Danny Wayne Fife (October 5, 1949 – May 30, 2024) was a

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

who played for the

Minnesota Twins The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central Division. The team is named after the Twin Cities area w ...

in and . A three-sport standout at Clarkston High School (MI), Fife played 3 years of varsity basketball and baseball at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. He served as basketball captain in his senior year. Fife was drafted in the 1971

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

draft by the

Milwaukee Bucks The Milwaukee Bucks are an American professional basketball team based in Milwaukee. The Bucks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central Division. The team was founded in 1968 ...

and also by the

Detroit Tigers The Detroit Tigers are an American professional baseball team based in Detroit. The Tigers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the American League (AL) Central division. One of the AL's eight charter franchises, the club was f ...

in the major league baseball draft. Choosing baseball as his immediate career path, Fife signed with the Tigers and was traded to the

right before the 1973 season. A sore arm ended Fife's baseball career prematurely after the 1975 season. Fife returned to the

as an assistant basketball coach. In 1983, Fife went back to his high school alma mater as the varsity basketball coach, where he remained for the next 36 years. In those years, Fife crafted a remarkable record of 29 league championships, 30 district titles, 13 regional titles and 2 state championships. He retired in 2018 as the third winningest coach in Michigan high school basketball history with 701 victories. Fife was inducted to the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 2019. He died from complications of Alzheimer's disease on May 30, 2024, at the age of 74.

References

External links

Michigan Sports Hall of Fame
1949 births 2024 deaths Baseball players from Saline County, Illinois Minnesota Twins players People from Harrisburg, Illinois {{US-baseball-pitcher-1940s-stub