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Snake Deal

American baseball player (1879–1944)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ7546987
Source-derived summary

John Wesley "Snake" Deal (January 21, 1879 – May 9, 1944) was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) first baseman and professional basketball player. He played half of one season for the Cincinnati Reds in 1906.

He also played professional basketball as a guard from 1899 to 1919 for various Pennsylvania teams in different leagues. Deal was considered one of the first and best players in the National Basketball League (NBL), the first professional basketball league ever formed. In 1904, he played for the Germantown Pros in matchups against teams like Allentown YMCA; during this period, he was also noted as the captain of the famous Camden team. He is the earliest recorded player to make use of the jump shot.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Snake Deal” as american baseball player (1879–1944). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Snake, Deal and American.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1879, 1944, 1906, 1899—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1879-01-21. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Snake, Deal and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Snake Deal”, the useful work is to connect “american baseball player (1879–1944)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7546987. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1879, 1944, 1906 and 1899.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Snake Deal”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Snake Deal primary sources, Snake Deal archive and Snake research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Snake Deal”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Snake Deal” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.