Danny Litwhiler

Daniel Webster Litwhiler (August 31, 1916 – September 23, 2011) was an American professional baseball player and coach. He played in Major League Baseball as an outfielder from 1940 to 1951 for the Boston Braves, St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies, and Cincinnati Reds. He was the first Major League Baseball player to have an error-free season while playing a full-time position on defense. That same season, 1942, he also became the first player to stitch together the fingers of his glove. After his playing career, he continued to work in baseball as a coach in college sports.

Early career Before entering baseball, Litwhiler graduated from college, unlike most major leaguers at the time. He graduated from Bloomsburg State Teacher's College in 1938, earning a bachelor's degree in Science and Social Sciences. The baseball facility at Bloomsburg is named Danny Litwhiler Field.

During his coaching career, he invented a very effective method of drying baseball fields after rain using calcined clay which was marketed as Diamond Grit, enabling play to resume very quickly and in the process saving organized baseball millions of dollars over the decades. He was also one of the first coaches to make use of radar guns to measure pitching velocity, which effectively revolutionized the assessment of pitchers. It first came on the market in collaboration with the Jugs company, known as the Jugs Gun.

Death Litwhiler died on September 23, 2011, in Clearwater, Florida, at age 95.