( CNN ) -- A baseball tradition is about to end . This week , Major League Baseball announced it would no longer allow the use of chewing tobacco when fans are present . If you 've got it , says the league , you 've got to conceal it . Since baseball became a professional sport in the mid-19th century , players and coaches have been tucking tobacco between their gums and cheeks and spitting out brown saliva . It 's a ritual that has permeated the game . Atlanta Braves coach Bobby Dews remembers the first time he was offered a `` chaw '' of tobacco , as they call it . It was 50 years ago when Dews left his junior year at Georgia Tech to sign a deal to play shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals ' minor league team . He got a $ 20,000 signing bonus . `` Everyone was chewing tobacco in the minors , '' Dews says . `` It was almost like an initiation . You knew the major leaguers did it . '' And everyone in the minors dreamed of the majors , including Dews . Dews ' first day on the team , an older player offered him some tobacco . Why did so many players use it ? `` I do n't know . Maybe they thought it would help you be a better ballplayer . Or maybe it just made you feel like a better ballplayer , '' Dew recalls . `` I tried it . It made me sick right out of the chute . Lucky for me . '' Dews played with the Cardinals farm team . Just like his father , who played more than a decade in the minors , Dews dreamed of playing in the majors . He recalls a story about chewing tobacco that his father passed down that may shed light on the roots of that baseball tradition . `` It was a couple years before I was born : around 1937 or '38 , shortly after they built the old ballpark in Durham , North Carolina , '' Dews said . `` My father was in the bullpen a lot . He was a catcher . The ballpark 's right field wall backed up to the Bull Durham Tobacco Factory . Young ladies who lived near the stadium would flirt with the guys in the bullpen and occasionally throw 'em tobacco . '' Could that be where the term bullpen derived ? Bull Durham chewing tobacco ? The story sounds like good old-fashioned folklore . `` This is a story I 've lived with , '' says Dew . `` You hear stories in your family so much they become true . I do n't know . '' Dews ' father left home during the Great Depression and became a minor league player by 16 . During World War II , Dews ' father was playing for the Atlanta Crackers in AA baseball . Then he was drafted by the Army . After the war , he signed up for the Army Reserves , which periodically interrupted his 13-year baseball career . Dews ' father had combat infantry badges from World War II , Korea and Vietnam . He did n't chew tobacco . But he smoked . And he drank . `` When he came back from Vietnam , he quit , '' Dews said . `` He never smoked or drank again . '' Dews ' grandparents raised him warning him that the men in the family had problems with alcohol . `` I was afraid to start drinking . I did n't want to become an alcoholic . I had a great desire to excel . I did n't have my first drink until I was 30 . '' And so , Dews , without chewing , without smoking , without drinking , played the minors and dreamed of the majors . After playing for 10 years , he realized , the St. Louis Cardinals were never going to call him up from the farm league . They told him , 'we do n't want you to be a major league player . We want you to be a major league coach . ' That meant coaching for a long time in the minors . So he honed his skills in the minors , developing young talent the way he wishes he 'd been developed , learning from the mistakes that the men who should have been his mentors made . `` I was 30-something . I had n't made it to the majors . A minor league manager for St. Louis was a lonely job . You did n't have a staff of coaches . By then , I thought I could handle anything . So I started having a few beers to relax after the game . '' Before he got too deep into drinking , Dews made a call for a new job , a new route to the majors . The Atlanta Braves answered the call . Dews became the team 's third-base coach . But his ascent hit a very big roadblock . The one his family warned about . In 1988 , upper management realized he had a problem with alcohol . He was determined not to be derailed . `` I found myself in a rehab center in St. Simon 's Island , just in the nick of time , '' Dews said . `` I 'd spent a lot of time trying to get to the top of this game , so I was gon na get help . It 's not like it 's going to go away . I 'm not drinking . But I 'll always be an alcoholic . '' Dews made it back to sobriety . And he made it back to the majors . He 's been coaching with the Atlanta Braves for the past 37 years , with over half a century working in baseball . A number of years were as a pitching coach , in the bullpen , where his father had spent so much time as a catcher . Even before Major League Baseball announced this week that there would be no more tobacco chewing within sight of the fans , teams would bring in well-known players such as Bill Tuttle , a former Detroit Tigers outfielder , to tell players about his tobacco chewing days and the throat cancer he battled . The league was committed to advising players on the dangers of smoking and drinking . Dews has continued to follow in the tradition of his father . Like his father , Dews writes books . His latest is `` Unpublished Poets . '' Like his father , he did n't chew tobacco . Like his father , he quit drinking and is proud to say he has n't had a drink in 25 years . Unlike his father , Dews made it to the majors and remains with the Atlanta Braves . At 71 , Dews still goes to spring training and coaches all the home games . `` I help coaches if they have questions -- if I can help them -- through my experience . '' Bobby Dews dreamed of the majors . He kept dreaming , until he got there .
Major League Baseball : Chewing tobacco not allowed when fans are present . Chewing tobacco is a longtime ritual associated with baseball . It's also banned in the NBA and NHL, but it can be done at home if you're there to watch your team play ( or just hang out ).