Dan Simmons of the Chicago Tribune has a nice article on "Big League Chew" in today's paper. Of course, Big League Chew is the shredded gum alternative to chewing tobacco that kids (especially little league kids) love so much.
Apparently Big League Chew is now 30 years old which I see as a good thing. Not everybody does though.
"With Big League Chew you get all the sensory cues you have with using chewing tobacco except the nicotine", said Gregory Connolly, a Harvard public-health professor who studies tobacco use in baseball.
"In my opinion that's the natural next step. Why settle for sugar when you can have nicotine?"
Give me a break! Kids "settle" for sugar because it doesn't taste like....well a wad of nicotine....and also because it is fun to chew shredded bubble gum (kind of) like a big league ballplayer.
I bet this Harvard guy never even played baseball and probably doesn't have any kids that he lets out of the library. If anything, he probably only lets them chew the Topps cardboard garbage which immediately disintegrates once it hits your tongue. They might even hate him!
The article goes on to note that one of the founders of Big League Chew, Rob Nelson says Harvard Guy's comparisons are misguided and makes the common-sense (non-Harvard) point that the gum is an alternative to the hard stuff and that gum is no more a gateway to chewing tobacco than Nerf guns are to AK-47s.
I like this Nelson guy.*
And I bet he didn't spend one day at Harvard!
*In the interests of full disclosure, I have a (very small) wad of Big League Chew in my mouth right now. Yep just an overgrown little boy in the business world here.
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3 comments:
Does Jim Bouton still have a stake in this, or did he sell his portion of the "invention" of Big League Chew?
I read this article in my very own local paper the other day and thought the same thing. Given the quotes, you'd think the streets are now rivers of tobacco juice because every 37-year-old in the country is hopelessly hooked thanks to Big League Chew.
We have a obesity problem the likes that no one has seen partly because kids are addicted to soda from the time they're 4 and someone is whining about 30-year-old Big League Chew?
What a horseshit article.
Cincykid, The article referenced Bouton as an original investor and inventor but did not mention his present status, if any, with the product. I know I should link to the article but....
Night Owl, I hear you.
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