Athletes used to smoke like crazy.
Went to an old Miami Marlins game in the late 50's, I believe. Those old Marlins played in Miami Stadium and were a Triple A team in the International League.
I was sitting next to the Marlins dugout and Satchel Paige came off the mound after retiring the side. He came into the dugout, cracked a joke that made a bunch of the other players laugh. He did this while pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his uniform pants pocket and lit up. In the dugout.
Satch, for those of you young people who are so ill-informed about history, was considered by many to be the greatest pitcher of all time. Of course, nobody knew who he was, because he spent so much time in the ***** Leagues. He was an old man by the time MLB was integrated. When he played for the Marlins, he could have easily been in his sixties.
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I recall going to a spring practice scrimmage in, I think, '63. That was The Matador's senior year and was being billed as Coach Gus' Dream Team because of the addition of the great sophomores Russ Smith and Pete Banaszak. (Remember, freshmen back then we're not eligible for varsity play).
After the scrimmage, we walked over to the baseball field to watch a game. As I remember, there were no stands, everybody just stood and watched.
I spotted our stud RB, Nick Ryder, standing inside of the fence with a group of guys, and he was smoking. Nick had finished up his eligibility and was headed to the Detroit Lions.
Young people used to smoke cigarettes a lot back then, and I began to hear that the common wisdom of the day was that you should only discontinue smoking during the season. It was deemed OK to smoke the rest of the year.
Of course, the common wisdom I sometimes heard from coaches back then was to be wary of weights--you might become too muscular, i.e., muscle bound. Some coaches advocated isometrics instead of weights. Where has that idea gone?
In the mid-70's, as the Dolphins began to decline, I remember an interview with Dolphins DE Vern den Herder outside a locker room. He was described as smoking during the interview.
Now I don't know anything about the practice of vaping or other contemporary practices, but I know the attitudes about cigarettes and tobacco in the '50's through the '70's we're too permissive and poorly informed at least as far as athletes went.
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