USA: Smoking Killsbaseball team—a teenager explains

In Kentucky, a southern, tobacco-growing state in the United States, teacher Mike Sawyer runs two baseball teams with a difference: their name itself is the blunt, hard-hitting slogan which motivates them:smoking kills (figure). The teams, for children of 11 years and under, and 12 and under, respectively, are becoming known increasingly far afield, and their name is clearly generating healthy controversy and challenging many Americans’ views on tobacco. Better than any of the news items and messages of support for the teams’ work, the account of one young player sums up what the teams are all about.

“Last summer I got to play baseball for an unusual team. The name of this team was smoking kills. At first I didn’t know if I would be able to play for that team and …