This is where we will have someone with better writing ability write up an explanation of this exhibition. It will likely recount a personal story perhaps even the one where Blum discusses how he and his father were sitting in their home in the Rockaways watching baseball ,when Dr. Leon Blum remarked how no one would believe in the future that cigarettes were advertised during ballgames, even being the promotional sponsor of broadcasts.

The text will then describe how cigarettes are the leading cause of death in the world and how baseball is one of the most popular sports in the world, making a nicer parallel than this to strike that point. It might go on to mention how when advertising for cigarettes was banned on television the cigarette companies were featuring billboard ads in ballparks on national television broadcasts almost the very next day. It will then go on to discuss what is coming in the exhibition, the early history of tobacco and baseball in baseball cards and initial team sponsorship. Then it will move into the early and mid 20th century sponsorship as mass media and advertising as well as the emerging sports celebrity phenomena dating back to Cobb, Ruth, Gehrig and others sold cigarettes, we might touch briefly on integration of the game with Jackie Robinson and how even they peddled cigarettes, next we discuss chewing tobacco and baseball with plenty of images and such, and finally note efforts to get tobacco out of baseball and how much has actually been accomplished.

With that all said we invite you to step to the plate with Baseball & Tobacco