NYC Wants To Ban Chewing Tobacco From Ballparks

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The New York City Council is aiming to do what Major League Baseball has been unable to thus far: ban chewing tobacco from ballparks.

The city hopes to have the ban in place for Opening Day at Yankee Stadium and Citi Field.

Both the Yankees and Mets support the idea.

The New York City Health Department is also backing the legislation.

At a hearing Thursday on several anti-smoking bills, the health department's senior legal counsel Kevin Schroth said every year roughly 415,000 kids nationwide try smokeless tobacco. He said young people repeatedly see professional athletes, especially baseball players, use chewing tobacco and that makes it socially acceptable.

A study by the Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers Society estimates about a third of ballplayers use snuff, WCBS 880's Marla Diamond reports.

Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, who was diagnosed with mouth cancer in 2014, spoke about its impact on his health in a video released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids last year.

"If the cameras had followed me from the mound in 2007, Game 2 of the World Series, into the hospital with a feeding tube, chemo therapy and radiation. I don't think a lot of kids would have taken up dipping or they might have stopped," Schilling says in the video.

The death of Baseball Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn from cancer of the salivary glands spurred Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles to enact bans on chewing tobacco in their ballparks.

(TM and © Copyright 2016 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)