• 12/19/2004
  • Raleigh, North Carolina
  • Kayce T. Ataiyero
  • newsobserver.com

Anti-tobacco push targets baseball

When Paul Turner conjures up an image of baseball, he sees a player on the field, his eyes trained on the ball, his mouth chomping on chewing tobacco like a cow with cud. But like an artist with a shiny new set of paintbrushes, Turner, director of the National Spit Tobacco Education Program, is eager to create a different picture of baseball, one in which its players and coaches are tobacco-free.

On Saturday, Turner spoke at the N.C. Baseball Coaches Association Conference to encourage coaches to keep their players from using snuff. He pleaded with the audience to help get out his message: Smokeless does not mean harmless.

“A lot of people think [snuff]’s safer because the [tobacco] industry uses the term ‘smokeless.’ What we are trying to say is that any tobacco is bad,” he said. “Coaches are great influences; they are role models. We want them to educate their athletes and parents.”

The National Spit Tobacco Education Program is funded by the N.C. Health and Wellness Trust Fund, which was created in 2000 by the state General Assembly to allocate some of the state’s share of the national tobacco settlement to health initiatives. The program works to prevent all spit tobacco use, but Turner said he focuses on baseball because it is so closely associated with the practice.

According to the National Cancer Institute, it is estimated that 40 percent to 50 percent of minor league baseball players use smokeless tobacco.

In 1991, minor league baseball banned the use of smokeless tobacco at the rookie level, and in 1993, it extended the ban throughout all the minor leagues. The use of smokeless tobacco is not prohibited in the major leagues.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, national spit tobacco use among high school-age boys is nearly 11 percent. In North Carolina, the rate is almost 18 percent.

Many young people who emulate their baseball heroes don’t realize the health risks associated with spit tobacco, Turner said. Those include tooth loss, ulcers and oral cancer.

“Our vision is to have all young people give up tobacco,” he said.

Health initiative

Turner was invited to speak at the conference by sponsor N.C. Amateur Sports, which is also funded by the N.C. Health and Wellness Trust Fund. Program coordinator Tom Wilson said the group has a begun major initiative to encourage good health among its athletes.

“It’s a priority to promote healthy, active lifestyles, tobacco and drug-free sports statewide,” he said.

Pete Shankle, athletics director at Southern High School in Durham, said he doesn’t understand why there is a parallel between baseball and spit tobacco. He said his athletics department is tobacco-free and that the anti-snuff message needs to catch on.

“It’s something that needs to be heard, impressed upon our kids and followed by all of us,” he said. “The only way they are going to hear it is if the coaches get the message to them.”