FUNNY SPORTS QUOTES \ Source: cleveland.com

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BASEBALL QUOTES

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Health-conscious baseball players chew gum, sunflower seeds instead of tobacco

Friday, March 28, 2008

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Baseball enthusiasts like to talk about that sport's eternal truths and enduring traditions. But baseball, like everything else, changes. Where are the stirrup socks of yesteryear? With today's long baseball pants, you can't tell the White Sox from the Red Sox. At least not by their socks.

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Remember when catchers wore their caps backward under their face masks? Now they wear face protectors that make them look like Japanese kendo warriors.

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And where are all the minimattresses that umpires used to use to shield themselves from errant fastballs? Going, going . . .

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The same can be said of guys in the dugout spewing tobacco soup from the wad of Mail Pouch packed in their cheeks. In 1998, after former Indians player Brett Butler, a smokeless-tobacco user, got throat cancer, Major League Baseball barred teams from providing players with tobacco products, although players are still free to use their own. All tobacco use was banned in the minor leagues the same year.

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"Every year [tobacco] usage decreases," Bart Swain, Indians director of media relations, wrote in an e-mail.

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But it's not completely gone. According to Swain, six to eight players on the 25-man roster use some form of chew or dip. Chew or leaf comes in scrap form and is tucked into the cheek. Red Man and Mail Pouch are two popular brands.

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Dip is a moist, concentrated form of sweetened tobacco. A user places a pinch between his lip and gum. Skoal and Copenhagen are popular brands.

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"Boy, I wish the stuff wasn't around," said Joe Charboneau, who played for the Indians from 1979 to '82 and now works for the North Ridgeville Recreation Department. "I see young kids using it and I hate that. The dip is basically the worst thing you can do. I feel real strongly about it."

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Charboneau said that when he played, 70 percent of the players used.

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"It was fun in the dugout spitting on each other's shoes," he said. "But the awareness wasn't there. It's just like looking at old Johnny Carson reruns. They had ashtrays out for everybody. Nobody thought anything of it."

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But the ugly reality of the harm it can do caught up with some of Charboneau's teammates.

"I know guys who went to the doctor for sores in their mouths and had biopsies. They quit after that."

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The oral fixation and compulsion is a tough one to defeat. Former Indians pitcher Len Barker knows all about it. He used Red Man and Skoal during his 15-year career. The chew habit wasn't hard to lose, but he went cold turkey on the dip just seven years ago.

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I'll tell you why the numbers are down for players now," said Barker, 52. "The teams don't provide it anymore. That's a big part of it. It used to be right in your face. And everybody used it. The coaches, the managers. And it wasn't just a baseball thing. Guys who used it did it while fishing or playing golf. It went with any outdoor activity. Of course, if you spit on the floor inside the house, your wife would beat you."

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he team now provides more healthful chewing alternatives. In a single season, the Indians will go through 12 cases of sunflower seeds and 10 cases of Bazooka bubble gum (regular and sugarless). That might be why players always seem to be spitting whenever the TV camera peeks into the dugout.

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Like Charboneau, Barker was inspired to quit the dip once he began coaching Little League. "It's a nasty habit," he said.