This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 18, 2011 - WASHINGTON - As the baseball world prepares for the World Series opening game in St. Louis on Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and four of his colleagues are urging players to stop using smokeless tobacco on the field, in dugouts or in locker rooms.
"Tomorrow night, an expected 15 million viewers, including many children, will tune in to watch the first game of the series. Unfortunately, as these young fans root for their favorite team and players, they also will watch their on-field heroes use smokeless tobacco products," the senators wrote to the Major League Baseball Players Association.
They asked that the association "agree to a prohibition on the use of all tobacco products at games and on camera at all Major League ballparks. This would send a strong message to young baseball fans, who look toward the players as role models, that tobacco use is not essential to the sport of baseball."
Aside from Durbin -- a longtime critic of tobacco use -- the other lawmakers signing the letter were Sens. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. Durbin sent a copy of the letter to the player representatives for the St. Louis Cardinals, as well as the Chicago Cubs and White Sox.
The use of smokeless tobacco products has increased by 36 percent among high school boys since 2003, according to a 2009 survey, and the proportion of high school boys using smokeless tobacco was about 15 percent. The tobacco industry spent about $548 million between 2005 and 2008 on tobacco-product advertising aimed at young people.
"Major League ballplayers who use smokeless tobacco at games are providing a celebrity endorsement for these products," the senators wrote, "encouraging many young people to try smokeless tobacco."
Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig announced this year that he would propose banning tobacco -- on the field, in the dugouts, and in the locker rooms at Major League Baseball venues -- during negotiations for the new players' contract. Tobacco products already are banned at the minor league level.
Also on Tuesday, top municipal health officials in St. Louis and in Texas called on World Series players to refrain from using smokeless tobacco during the games and renewed their call for the players union to agree to ban smokeless tobacco use at games beginning with next year's contract.
"The use of tobacco by big-league ballplayers at a single World Series game provides millions of dollars worth of free television advertising for an addictive and deadly product," wrote Pamela Walker, interim director of the St. Louis Health Department, and Dr. Cynthia Simmons of the Public Health Authority for Arlington, Texas.
In a joint letter to Michael Weiner, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, the health officials wrote that smokeless tobacco use by ballplayers "creates an image for young fans that tobacco use is not only acceptable, but masculine and athletic.”
Simmons and Walker pointed out that the tobacco industry is prohibited from advertising its products on television and is restricted in marketing to youth. "Tobacco companies literally could not buy the ads that are effectively created by celebrity ballplayers using tobacco at games," they wrote.