Ellis Ferguson "Cot" Deal (born January 23, 1923) is a former pitcher and coach in Major League Baseball. Listed at 5' 10.5", 185 lb., Deal was a switch-hitter and threw right-handed. A native of Arapaho, Oklahoma, he grew up in Oklahoma City and was nicknamed "Cot" for his cotton-top hair color.
Deal enjoyed a long and distinguished career in baseball from 1940 through 1989 and interrupted only by military service during World War II (1943-1944)...
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Ellis Ferguson "Cot" Deal (born January 23, 1923) is a former pitcher and coach in Major League Baseball. Listed at 5' 10.5", 185 lb., Deal was a switch-hitter and threw right-handed. A native of Arapaho, Oklahoma, he grew up in Oklahoma City and was nicknamed "Cot" for his cotton-top hair color.
Deal enjoyed a long and distinguished career in baseball from 1940 through 1989 and interrupted only by military service during World War II (1943-1944). He spent 48 years in baseball as a player (20), manager (5), coach (22) and executive (1).
As a sixteen-year old, Deal was invited by the Pittsburgh Pirates to spend in week in Pittsburgh. By then, the club was managed by Pie Traynor, who gave Deal his first baseball tryout. After signing with Pittsburgh two years before his high school graduation, he spent 1940 with the Hutchinson, Kansas team of the Western Association, hitting a .312 average while splitting time between the outfield and third base. The next year he gained promotion to the...
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