It's time to get chew out of baseball!
- Tobacco use is the number one cause of preventable death in North American and the world.
- Major League Baseball regulates the use of lots of legal products already, down to the way players dress on the field. You would never see a player or coach drinking or smoking on the field.
- Tobacco use is already banned in the minor leagues and instructional leagues.
- Professional baseball players are definitely role models, especially for young athletes.
- Major League Baseball and the Mariners blame the Major League Baseball Players Association for continued use of tobacco on the field.
- Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association (Players union) are already working together (after much public outcry) to reduce/eliminate steroid use.
As we know, Major League Baseball is determined to get steroids and performance-enhancing drugs out of the game. Both politicians and fans have expressed disgust at the thought of players cheating, especially when those players break or threaten to break long standing records. Politicians and fans are also worried that young people will watch their baseball heroes gain success and acclaim by bulking up through illegal means, and will think they have to do the same to compete.
But where is the uproar over young persons watching ballplayers use smokeless tobacco, especially when over 30 percent of ballplayers do so? After-all, long-term users of smokeless tobacco increase their risk of mouth cancer by 400 percent, and approximately 50 percent of those who use smokeless tobacco developed the habit before they were 13. Just as troubling, 20 percent of high school males use it and a higher percentage of high school athletes do.
So why not the same uproar over smokeless tobacco? Is it because steroids are about cheating while smokeless tobacco is about personal habit? Is it because many steroids and performance-enhancing are illegal while smokeless tobacco is not? Is it because too many players chew and it is thus too widely-used to stigmatize? The explanation doesn’t appear to be about health concerns, as smokeless tobacco is arguably more harmful and its use among young persons appears to be more prevalent.
These are questions implicated by a new study authored by Harvard Professor Gregory Connolly on tobacco use during the 2004 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals. Professor Connolly and his researchers analyzed videotapes of Game 4, and found that the Sox and Cardinals provided what amounted to $6.4 million in free advertising to the smokeless tobacco industry in one game!. So no, not a good example for impressionable kids.
Its time for Major League Baseball, the Major League Baseball Players Association and the players and staff of Major League Baseball to work together to eliminate the over exposure of tobacco use by players and coaches on TV and at the stadium, while reducing the deadly impact tobacco has on the player, coaches and fans of Major League Baseball!