The Case for Banning Smokeless Tobacco in Major League Baseball

As we know, Major League Baseball is determined to eradicate steroids and performance-enhancing drugs from the game. Both politicians and fans have expressed disgust at the thought of players cheating, especially when those players break or threaten to break storied 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 thus feel that they should do the same. I discussed that latter topic in an article published last year in the American Journal of Law and Medicine.

But where is the uproar over young persons watching ballplayers chew and spit smokeless tobacco, especially when over 70 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. Smokeless tobacco is also known to discolor teeth and to cause gum recession and tooth decay.

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. Even worse, we've already seen baseball players greviously harmed by smokeless tobacco (e.g., former Anaheim Angles minor leaguer Rick Bender; former high school baseball player Gruen Von Behrens), but bursts of outrage directed toward it don't seem to last. **Note: the photos of Bender and Von Behrens show horrifically-saddening consequences of smokeless tobacco, so be warned before clicking on their links.**

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. (Stephen Smith, “Team of Destiny had a Dirty Habit,” Boston Globe, Apr. 11, 2006). 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. So no, not a good example for impressionable kids.

Professor Connolly calls on Major League Baseball to ban smokeless tobacco, but Major League Baseball claims it cannot do so without consent from the Major League Players' Association (does that explanation ring a bell?). It would be great to think that Congress would show the same resolve in tackling smokeless tobacco that it has in combating steroids--particularly since the threats of Senators John McCain and Jim Bunning clearly had an effect on both Bud Selig and Donald Fehr--but given the lobbying and political-fundraising strength of the tobacco industry, I'm a tad skeptical that we’ll see the same Congressional willpower this time around.

Thanks to Bill McCann for alerting me of the Connolly study.

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