Stopping baseball's big dip.

• Author: Zirin, Dave
• Position: EDGE OF SPORTS - Column

I will never forget my first Major League baseball game. It was Yankee Stadium in 1980-something. I had my baseball cap, my glove in case of an errant foul ball, and an extra hand primed for some peanuts or Cracker Jacks. But on this summer day, I didn't leave with a stray foul ball. Instead, like every fan in attendance, I was given a free copy of New York Yankees outfielder Bobby Murcer's new country music single, "I'm a Skoal Dippin' Man." That was my initiation into the deadly and utterly normalized relationship between chewing tobacco and the National Pastime.

I was reminded of that rockabilly tune two years ago, when one of the great baseball players of my lifetime, San Diego Padre legend Tony Gwynn, died at age fifty-four. The Hall of Famer was felled by salivary gland cancer, a tragically predictable result of thirty-one years of addiction to putting tobacco between his lip and gum. Now his family is seeking justice. In a lawsuit filed against the Altria Group Inc., previously known as Philip Morris, as well as other defendants, the Gwynns argue that Tony was targeted by the tobacco industry as part of a conscious strategy to improve its market share in the African American community. They contend that big tobacco saw Gwynn as a "marketing dream come true" for their industry.

Whether or not this lawsuit is successful, it is shining a light on baseball's long, bizarre, and devastating history of "dipping," which still resonates today. Stunningly, about 30 percent of Major League players continue to use chewing tobacco, roughly five times as many as in the general population.

The habit continues even though the practice is banned in the Major League parks of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and, just recently, Chicago. It is also banned in all Minor League baseball parks. These practices have certainly had an impact-- twenty years ago, a majority of Major Leaguers chewed this poison. But the practice continues and the question remains: Why is a habit that causes cancer, death, and brutal withdrawal systems so uniquely entrenched in Major League baseball?

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