Striking Out Snuff
1/15/2005 Lexington, KY By Jim Warren Lexington Herald-Leader Legends warn of chew's dangers A manly slugger digs in at the plate and awaits the pitch, his hands clenched tightly around his bat, and a hunk of chewing tobacco crammed firmly in his cheek. It's an image that has said "baseball" for 100 years -- and it's an image that baseball doesn't want today's youngsters to emulate. That's why representatives of the Lexington Legends minor league baseball team joined Dr. Brent Mortenson, a Lexington oral surgeon, to warn freshmen at Bryan Station High School yesterday about the health dangers of smokeless tobacco. The presentation, a partnership between the Legends and the National Spit Tobacco Education Program, is one of several planned for Lexington schools. "Baseball players have been using chewing tobacco, spit tobacco, smokeless tobacco, whatever you want to call it, for many years," Legends announcer Larry Glover told the students. "But baseball is trying to disassociate itself from that. Baseball is trying to change." Unfortunately, many young Kentuckians haven't gotten the word. According to the most recent federal figures, 13.7 percent of Kentucky high school students use smokeless tobacco -- one of the nation's five highest rates. One reason, critics contend, is that too many kids are copying that old image of the tobacco-chewing baseball hero. They shouldn't, Mortenson told the students yesterday. He presented a video about Bill Tuttle, a center fielder with Detroit, Kansas City and Minnesota from 1952 to 1963. Tuttle died in 1998 from oral cancer [...]