America’s Past Time and Cancer?

If you were to ask people what they think of when they think of baseball, you will probably get a variety of answers both good and bad, these may include World Series, October, Derek Jeter, Yankees, or Babe Ruth; however, one thing that people usually don’t say is chewing tobacco. Since baseball has been around, players have been chewing tobacco and spitting it everywhere, from the field to the dugout to the on deck circle, but do these men know exactly what they are doing to their mouths? 

Former MLB pitcher and current ESPN analyst Curt Schilling roughly 7 months ago was diagnosed with mouth cancer. After many tough months of chemotherapy and a long absence from his job on MLB Tonight he is finally ready to return. In an extremely honest interview Schilling admitted he believes his mouth cancer was caused by chewing tobacco. 

Schilling isn’t alone, many players and managers such as Melky Cabrera of the Toronto Blue Jays, Terry Francona of the Cleveland Indians and AJ Burnett of the Philadelphia Phillies. Despite none of these men having cancer yet, they will forever be at a much larger risk to mouth, gum, throat and many other types of cancer. 

I feel the MLB should make an attempt in the near future to slowly eliminate chewing tobacco. It could end up proving very difficult for veterans who have been chewing it their entire careers, Curt Schilling for example chewed tobacco for roughly 18 years and blames that fully for the cancer he endured.

Many young players throughout professional baseball, the MLB as well as the MiLB have been making an attempt to switch from tobacco to sunflower seeds, something to spit that isn’t cancerous. Also, if you were to look in MLB dugouts during games, both the home and away dugouts have many different flavors of David’s sunflower seeds as well as Double Bubble in an attempt to rid tobacco and cancer from the MLB.images

 

2 thoughts on “America’s Past Time and Cancer?

  1. Austin White

    I completely agree with this. As a baseball player myself I also would like to see a decrease in the use of chewing tobacco in dugouts. Luckily some measure have been made to decrease tobacco especially in the minor leagues. Players receive major fines if its violated, And I hope to see it move up to the majors as well. here is a wiki article that talks about the minor league no tobacco policy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_usage_in_sport

  2. Stephanie Rose Polinak

    I’m not a huge baseball fan but I know chewing tobacco plays a big role in the dugouts. I remember as a kid, I would go to my brothers baseball games and would always see “Big League Chew” gum at concession stands. I didn’t get it then but now I realize that it is also used to try to replace chewing tobacco. I personally don’t understand why players would even being to use chewing tobacco when there is so many alternatives. Also, why hasn’t the MLB just banned tobacco from dugouts? I feel like that would have happened by now with all of the known health consequences.

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