Baseball players have long been the dubious poster boys for chewing tobacco, but today fewer than one in three major leaguers uses smokeless tobacco -- down from 46 percent in 1987.

The Gannett News Service reported March 20 that Boston Red Sox manager Terry Francona is waging a public battle to quit chewing tobacco, following in the footsteps of fellow manager Ron Gardenhire of the Minnesota Twins -- who quit eight years ago -- and other players and coaches.

"My daughter came home from school one day, and they had done the D.A.R.E. program," recalled Gardenhire, saying Tiffany, then 14, urged him to quit because she didn't want him to die. "It was really hard," Gardenhire said. "I can't tell you how many thousands of times I'll see somebody open a can of Skoal, and I have felt like saying, 'Give me some of that.'"

Red Sox President Larry Lucchino, a two-time cancer survivor, bet Francona $20,000 that he could quit chewing tobacco. If Francona succeeds, Lucchino will donate the money to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute; if he fails, Francona will have to make a donation to charity.

"I'll make it," said Francona. "That's why I made the bet, because I wanted to stop. If I didn't want to stop, I wouldn't have made the bet."

Francona has had to persevere despite some locker-room pressure. "The players are horrible," he said. "Horrible. David Ortiz is putting it under my nose. ... I'm not going to do it, because I don't want to do it. But it's not easy. If I had my druthers, I would rather be chewing."

Some former users turn to sunflower seeds, bubble gum or even beef jerky to substitute for chew. And chewing-tobacco companies are now banned from giving samples to players or advertising in stadiums.