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. Late in his major league career, he played a short time for the Browns, losing one game before returning to the minors at the end of his career.\n', '

Roy Emil Frederick Hansen was born in Chicago on February 21, 1907. 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. Hours later, he returned to the hotel "where he found the entire Cub team waiting for him in the lobby, falling over with laughter". The "Snipe" moniker remained with him for the remainder of his career.\n', '

Hansen was signed by the Cubs for a tryout in 1927, described by the Miami News as "the first native son hurler to reseive [sic] a tryout in a long time". Chicago assigned him to their double-A affiliate, the Reading Keystones, where he appeared in 34 games during the 1927 season. Notching the team\'s third-worst winning percentage (.111) with one win against eight losses, he amassed a 6.99 earned run average (ERA), allowing 99 runs in 94 innings pitched. Hansen was reported to be on the Reading staff again during 1928\'s spring training, with the Keystones still anticipating his arrival as late as mid-April, 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). Hansen led the Colonels in runs allowed, earned runs, and walks, allowing 241 hits on the season and collecting a 4.14 ERA.\n', '

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