There were two things my mom would never let me have growing up: Garbage Pail Kids and Big League Chew. The former she found disgusting, which is the point, and the latter because she said mimicked chewing tobacco, which was also the point. Later, when I played Little League, I finally got to have some of it, and it was kind of gross. However, convincingly chewing Big League Chew was the only baseball-related skill I possessed, so I rolled with it. Fun fact: Big League Chew was developed in 1980 by ballplayers Rob Nelson and Jim Bouton, as an alternative to chewing tobacco, proving my mom either totally right or totally wrong.

• Tweet
•