Roy Emil Frederick "Snipe" Hansen (February 21, 1907 – September 11, 1978) was an American left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball.
After opening his minor league career in the Chicago Cubs system, Hansen was purchased by the Phillies in 1930, playing for them that season and from 1932 to 1935.
He won 22 games and lost 44 for the Philadelphia club, posting a 4.84 earned run average in 599 innings and splitting time between the starting rotation and the bullpen.
[1] He acquired his nickname during his first spring training with the Chicago Cubs, when the team prepared for the season on Catalina Island, southwest of Los Angeles.
Jim Vitti, author of The Cubs on Catalina, told of Hansen's trip to the bottom of a canyon on the island, led by two teammates who gave him a burlap bag and disappeared, ostensibly to flush out the snipe.
[4] Hansen was reported to be on the Reading staff again during 1928's spring training,[5] with the Keystones still anticipating his arrival as late as mid-April,[6] but he played the entire 1928 season for the unaffiliated Elmira Colonels, posting a 12–17 win–loss record in 229 innings (37 games; tied for most pitching appearances on the club).
[7] In 1929, Hansen re-surfaced with Chicago on the way to spring training at Catalina,[8] and spent that season in the minor leagues with the Dayton Aviators, where he accumulated a 5.16 ERA (105 earned runs in 150 innings), winning seven games and losing eleven.
[9] After spending the first three months of the 1930 season with the Richmond Roses, where he posted an 11–9 record and a 4.50 ERA in 162 innings,[10] Hansen was purchased by the Philadelphia Phillies.
[17] He atoned the next day, however, when he started against the Giants, pitching a complete game, allowing one earned run, and lowering his ERA from 16.20 to 3.38;[18] Hansen's contest was called a "remarkable comeback" by the Reading Eagle.
[1] Still the youngest member of Philadelphia's rotation,[20] Hansen began the 1933 season pitching out of the Phillies bullpen, making five appearances before his first start.
[33] Washington traded Hansen to the St. Louis Browns four weeks later for future considerations,[33] and he made his debut against the Senators on June 15, allowing three runs in four innings.
In the team's final June contest, he allowed ten runs (nine earned) to the Detroit Tigers in an 18–1 St. Louis loss.
[33] For the remainder of the 1935 season, Hansen played for the Senators' minor league affiliates in Chattanooga and Albany, where he collected a 7–10 record and a 4.28 ERA.