Former Mets Manager Bobby Valentine wrote a fairly well written op-ed in today's New York Times urging MLB to ban smokeless tobacco.
This issues just goes to show how stubborn MLB really is. Baseball tries to come off so pure and loves the "national past-time" tag yet couldn't have turned more of a blind eye in the late 1990's/early 2000's during the juiced home-run era that boosted the sports popularity and brought in millions.
As Bobby V. pointed out, smokeless tobacco is obviously banned in NCAA baseball but also minor league games. MLB just recently started using instant-reply...and only on home run calls, which didn't do Armando Gallaraga any good last summer.
The NBA had no problem banning Caron Butler from chewing straws during games for safety reasons. David Stern suspends players from the bench for simply walking onto the court during a scuffle, the NFL fined James Harrison nearly every time he walked on the field this year for his hits, yet MLB can't make a simple call to send a solid message to young aspiring ball players and stop something like this from ever happening to a legend like this again.
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