Several years before this diagnosis, the former major league star was already warned by people about his addiction to smokeless tobacco. The legal but harmful vice can be very addicting. As with ordinary cigarettes, the nicotine addiction is hard to shake off especially in this day and age where availability of the product is widespread.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, more young athletes are trying the product, including women.
Schilling reportedly just tried to dip the stuff at 16 and since then hasn't been able to shake the habit of using it, "I tried it at lunch, liked it and have been doing it ever since." A lesion found in his mouth scared his family back then, especially his now teenage daughter. He stopped using tobacco for a year and a half after the lesion was found, but started using again when somebody handed the nasty stuff to him at a golf tournament.
He had a warning for young people back then, "I would tell (young people) this: If you want to have pre-cancerous lesions in your mouth ... want to lose your sense of smell and taste ... want to have your appetite change ... want to have acid reflux and potentially get cancer of the esophagus, stomach, chin, lip, mouth, whatever ... then maybe it's the right thing to do."
It's unfortunate that Schilling couldn't shake off the habit and now has cancer.
Curt Schilling spent 20 years in the major leagues with the Red Sox and was influential in their victories during 2004 and 2007. After spending four seasons with the Sox, Schilling joined the ESPN network's program "Baseball Tonight" in 2010 as a studio analyst in 2010.
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