Major League Baseball Player. A right handed pitcher, he spent 48 years in professional baseball as a player, manager, and coach. Born Ellis Fergason Deal, he was raised in Oklahoma City and showed sufficient athletic promise that he was signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates at 16. In 1940 he broke in with the Pirates' Hutchinson, Kansas, farm team as an outfielder and third baseman and hit .312; following service with the US Army Air Corps during World War II he was playing for the AAA Toronto Maple Leafs when he was converted to pitcher and traded to the Boston Red Sox. He made his major league debut on September 11, 1947, as a pinch hitter, collecting a game-winning RBI single off of Indians' Hall-of-Famer Bob Lemon. After spending 1948 in Boston, Deal was sent to the St. Louis Cardinals, playing for the big league club in 1950 and 1954 and serving as a pitcher, outfielder, and manager for the AAA Rochester Red Wings during the other seasons up thru 1959. Deal won 3 major league games against 4 losses with a 6.55 ERA and 34 strike outs; he went 68-31 on the mound for Rochester and won a total of 108 minor league games. After leaving the field, he began a long coaching career, managing the AAA Indianapolis Indians to the 1961 American Association championship, serving as a major league pitching coach with the Cincinnati Reds, Houston Colt 45s, New York Yankees, Kansas City A's, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, Houston Astros, Chicago White Sox, and San Francisco Giants. In between his coaching jobs, Deal managed at the AAA level for the Oklahoma City 89ers (twice), the Toledo Mud Hens, and the Columbus Clippers. He retired after coaching for the Giants in 1989, was inducted into the Red Wings' Hall-of-Fame in 1994, lived out his days in Oklahoma City, and died in a hospice facility of the infirmities of advanced age.