If you think you won’t still see guys out there with rings in their pockets and horseshoes in their gums, then you don’t know baseball. And if you think you won’t still find empty beer bottles filled with dip spit littering the bleachers every game, then you don’t know New York.
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NEW YORK — When the Yankees and Houston Astros took the field in the Bronx on Wednesday night, they were the first players to be prohibited by law from using smokeless tobacco for a regular-season game. And the ban covers everyone else in the ballpark, too. Under a portrait of Alexander Hamilton, who in 1794 proposed the first federal excise taxes on tobacco, New York mayor Bill de Blasio signed the ban into law just before 5 p.m., and it took effect immediately.
I said this a few weeks ago when the city council approved the bill, and I’ll say it again (I’ll copy and paste my blog from two weeks ago so I can just watch the Masters) now…
How exactly is this going to be policed?
Seriously, how is this supposed to work? Are cops supposed to walk in the dugout and write tickets to the players packing lips? Will concerned citizens call the tip line if they see a tin in Brett Gardner’s pocket? Are security guards gonna toss fans for dipping in the bleachers? Can people make citizen’s arrests for something that can basically be disguised as chewing gum or spitting seeds?
I just don’t see any realistic scenario where this is actually going to be enforced. Just think about it… if Matt Harvey has to throw one in on the mound because he’s self destructing in the 9th, is Officer Prosciutto gonna charge the field to write him a ticket?
Even without touching on the “personal freedoms” aspect, this whole this is stupid. As long as tobacco and baseball still exist, players and fans are going to dip at a ballgame, no matter what the rules are. Everyone here has gone to the liquor store a block up from Yankee Stadium and snuck nips into the stadium hidden in their pants. And everyone here will just shove a tin in their belt line or a pouch in their sock so they can dip during the twelve hour baseball game they’re about to watch.
No stupid city ordinance is going to scare people into quitting. And no cop with a pouch of Redman in his chest pocket is every going to seriously enforce this. This is all just some stupid public relations move from a city that knows it can’t actually change anything. If you think you won’t see guys out there with rings in their pockets and horseshoes in their gums, then you don’t know baseball. And if you think you won’t still find empty beer bottles filled with dip spit littering the bleachers every game, then you don’t know New York.
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