On the Sox being ’leaders’ in chewing tobacco… while I think it can be a pretty disgusting habit, these calls to ban it in the game “for the kids” seem a bit over the top:
‘‘We’ve seen data today from 2004 and 2005 that show children are heavily exposed to a cancer-causing agent from our best friends, the Red Sox,"
I remain very skeptical about the whole “kids see their favourite baseball players do things, kids do the same things” argument… for one, how old do these supposedly influenced children look that retailers are selling them chewing tobacco? Unless what that means is that “oh, children see big leaguers chew, they store that image up for years, and when they’re old enough they rush out and get a nice big tin of Skoal”. In which case, if kids can be that influenced by their heroes, in about 10 years time we’ll see those fans of the Sox with the Manny hairdo… or worse, SLIDING INTO THIRD BASE HANDS FIRST #@$%!