RIP to Dan Fife, one of the most successful coaches in Michigan high school basketball history. He was also a well-regarded pitching prospect who played for the Minnesota Twins during the 1970s. Fife died on May 30 at the age of 74. He played for the Twins in 1973 and 1974.
Danny Wayne Fife was born in Harrisburg, IL, on October 5, 1949, but his athletic career really started in Michigan when he attended Clarkston High School. He was a three-sport athlete, but he was a standout on the basketball court. In his junior year of 1966-67, Fife averaged more than 30 points a game. He topped 1,500 points in his high school career, and by the time he was a senior in 1967, he had a potential career in multiple sports.
“He’s also an excellent football quarterback and throws like a pro,” said his basketball coach, Bud McGrath. “He’s certain to be among the top high school choices in the next baseball draft. He has almost 200 colleges and universities interested in him.” Sure enough, the Detroit Tigers drafted Fife in the 21st Round of the 1967 June Amateur Draft. However, Fife chose to go to the University of Michigan instead. He spent three seasons on the varsity roster, and while those Wolverine teams didn’t light the Big 10 on fire, he was a double-digit scorer and spent two years with future NBA Hall of Famer Rudy Tomjanovich. By the time Fife was a senior, he was the basketball team’s captain.
For all his success as a basketball player, Fife favored baseball. He was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA Draft — as the last player taken in the regular (not supplemental) draft — but the Tigers took him in the Second Round in the 1971 Draft. Fife’s high school and college baseball career was very much overshadowed by his basketball play, and his baseball career in Michigan amounted to two seasons of pitching and a year in the outfield. But Detroit was always ready to look beyond college baseball records and sign talented athletes from other sports. “Whenever they talked about me playing pro basketball it was always, ‘If you hustle, work hard…’ but Mr. Katalinas [Ed Katalinas was Detroit’s director of player procurement] told me I was an outstanding prospect, that I had a promising future in baseball,” Fife said. “I think I could have made the Bucks’ team. I can run an offense and scoring doesn’t mean that much to me.”
A look at Fife’s statistics for two different Class-A teams in 1971 gives some good indication of his abilities. Fife made a total of 13 starts for Rocky Mount and Batavia and had a 7-4 record and a 2.48 ERA. In 87 innings, he allowed just 68 hits, walked 37 batters and struck out another 72. He threw a 7-inning 2-1 no hitter against Lynchburg on August 1 while pitching for Rocky Mount. In 1972, he moved up to Double-A Montgomery and won 14 games with a 3.10 ERA and 12 complete games. He also racked up a career-high 156 strikeouts. Detroit traded him to the Twins in March 1973 for veteran pitcher Jim Perry. Fife was promoted to Triple-A Tacoma in 1973, and his strikeout rate dropped and walk rate increased. He still won 10 games, but it was with a 4.50 ERA in the offensive-friendly Pacific Coast League. Nevertheless, the Twins promoted Fife to the majors in August 1973.
Fife’s first major-league appearance was a scoreless 3-inning relief stint against Cleveland on August 18. He allowed just 2 hits and a walk and fanned Rusty Torres for his first career strikeout. On the 22nd, he relieved rookie Bill Campbell in the first inning after Brooks Robinson, put Baltimore up by 3 with a bases-loaded single. Fife went the distance and allowed just one more run, but that run proved to be the margin of victory and saddled the rookie with a hard-luck loss. His first career start came on August 27, and it was against his old Detroit Tigers team. Fife allowed 2 runs in 7 innings before tiring in the 90-degree heat, and the Twins bullpen preserved his first major-league win, a 5-3 victory. Campbell picked up his first major-league save by recording the final two outs. Fife said after the game that he was “so disappointed about leaving Detroit,” so the win must have felt particularly good. “Who says we’re not producing major league ballplayers?” cracked Dave Miller, Detroit’s assistant farm director.
Fife finished off the year in Minnesota’s starting rotation and had 3 wins and 2 losses to go with a 4.35 ERA. He struggled with his control, hitting 3 batters and throwing 4 wild pitches in 51-2/3 innings. He walked 29 batters and struck out just 18. In his final win of the year, he threw a complete game 7-1 win against California, but he walked 6 batters and didn’t register a single strikeout. Fife was left out of the starting rotation in 1974, though he made the team as a reliever. He made 4 relief appearances, pitched 4-2/3 innings and gave up 11 runs — 9 earned — on 10 hits and 4 walks. He also allowed 3 of 4 inherited runs to score. Fife had a 17.36 ERA in those appearances, and the Twins sent him to the minor leagues on May 6. Fife returned to Tacoma and struggled to a 6.54 ERA, mostly as a reliever. His playing career ended in 1975 after 8 appearances for Double-A Orlando, thanks to a sore arm.
Fife pitched in parts of 2 seasons and had 7 starts and 7 relief appearances. He had a 3-2 record and a 5.43 ERA, having allowed 34 earned runs in 56-1/3 innings. He walked 33 and struck out 21. Opposing batters hit .286 against him.
After his playing career ended, Fife was hired by the University of Michigan to serve as an assistant basketball coach to John Orr. He didn’t know exactly what ended his career, and neither did the Twins. “One of their doctors told me it was bursitis and another told me it was tendonitis. They don’t know what it is,” Fife told UPI. “It’s sore even now. And you can’t hide it out there [on the mound.] They let you know about it if you can’t throw the ball.
“I’m bitter about the way they treated me,” Fife added. “I went to spring training thinking I had a shot at being one of their four starters but I never started a game until the end of the exhibition season.”
After a few years at Michigan, Fife returned home to Clarkston. After a brief job as a golf course manager, he was named the freshman basketball coach for Clarkston High in 1981-82. The following year, he moved up to the varsity team and began a 36-year run of success. According to The Oakland Press, Fife retired in 2018 after 703 wins, 29 league titles, 30 district titles and 13 regionals. He was only the third high school basketball coach in the state to reach 700 wins. He also won back-to-back state champions in 2017 and 2018, ending his coaching career on the highest of high notes. Fife and his wife Jan had three sons, Dugan, Jeremy and Dane, and he coached them all at Clarkston. Dugan and Dane went on to college careers as a player and coach, respectively. Dan Fife was inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 2019.
When he retired, Fife spoke with the Detroit Free Press about his career. “I was able to accomplish a dream come true,” he said. “I dreamed about it all my life and I was able to do it. I have so much to be thankful for. I wanted to play college basketball, I played college basketball. I wanted to play pro baseball, I played pro baseball. I wanted to win a state championship, I won a state championship.
“To coach two state championships with Clarkston kids was special. The kids growing up now, they can actually realize that they can do it. Years ago, it was just a dream. Now it’s become a reality that if they work hard they can do it in football, basketball or whatever.”
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