Snake Deal
American baseball player (1879–1944)

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.
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.
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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.
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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.