NEW YORK -- When the Yankees and Houston Astros take the field in the Bronx on Wednesday night, they will be 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, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed the ban just before 5 p.m. and it took effect immediately.
"We don't want our young people to think smokeless tobacco is a cool thing," de Blasio said.