Born in Los Angeles, Snider was nicknamed "Duke" by his father at age 5 as the result of a self-confident swagger that caused his parents to say he carried himself like royalty.

[1] Growing up in Southern California, Snider was a gifted all-around athlete, playing basketball, football, and baseball at Compton High School, class of 1944.

Snider (after spring training with the Dodgers) started the 1948 season with Montreal, and after hitting well in that league with a .327 batting average, he was called up to Brooklyn in August and played in 53 games.

A more mature Snider became the "trigger man" in a power-laden lineup which boasted players Joe Black, Roy Campanella, Billy Cox, Carl Erskine, Carl Furillo, Gil Hodges, Clem Labine, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, and Preacher Roe.

Often compared with two other New York center fielders, fellow Baseball Hall of Famers, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays, he was the reigning "Duke" of Flatbush.

When his average slipped to .277 in 1951 (a season when the Dodgers lost a 13‑game August lead and finished second to the Giants after Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World"), Snider was roundly criticized in the newspapers.

Coupled with an aching knee and a 440-foot (130 m) right field fence at the cavernous Coliseum, Snider hit only 15 home runs in 1958.

In 1962 when the Dodgers led the NL for most of the season (only to find themselves tied with the hated Giants at the season's end), it was Snider and third-base coach Leo Durocher who reportedly pleaded with manager Walter Alston to bring in future Hall of Fame pitcher (and Cy Young Award winner that year) Don Drysdale in the ninth inning of the third and deciding playoff game.

On April 16, 1963, Snider recorded his 2,000th hit, doing so at Crosley Field against the Cincinnati Reds on a single off Jim Maloney in the 2nd inning.

Snider finished second to teammate Roy Campanella in the 1955 Most Valuable Player (MVP) balloting conducted by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

A widely believed story, summarized in an article by columnist Tracy Ringolsby,[6] holds that a hospitalized writer from Philadelphia had turned in a ballot with Campanella listed as his first-place and fifth-place vote.

Additionally, the position wasn't discarded — everyone lower on the ballot was moved up a spot, and pitcher Jack Meyer was inserted at the bottom with a 10th place vote.

[8] Following his retirement from baseball, Snider became a popular and respected TV/radio analyst and play-by-play announcer for the San Diego Padres from 1969 to 1971 and for the Montreal Expos from 1973 to 1986.

Other appearances include an uncredited part as a Los Angeles Dodgers center fielder in The Geisha Boy (1958), the Cranker in The Trouble with Girls (1969), and a Steamer Fan in Pastime (1990).

[9] In 1995, Snider and Willie McCovey pleaded guilty to federal tax fraud charges after they had failed to report income from sports card shows and memorabilia sales.

[12] Snider was featured, along with Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays, in the 1981 song "Talkin' Baseball" by Terry Cashman.

Snider died on February 27, 2011, at age 84 of an undisclosed illness at the Valle Vista Convalescent Hospital in Escondido, California.

In 2013, the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award honored Snider as one of 37 Baseball Hall of Fame members for his service in the United States Navy during World War II.