Pitching, hitting and spitting.

All three are embedded in our national pastime, so it’s no surprise some MLB players are wary of the league’s proposal to ban in-game spitting, among other baseball staples, in an attempt to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

“Wait, what?” Rockies star Charlie Blackmon told Sports Illustrated. “I’m 100 percent gonna spit. That’s ingrained in my playing the game. Whether or not I’m dipping or chewing gum, I’m still gonna spit. I have to occupy my mind. It’s like putting things on autopilot.”

The proposed ban on spitting, as well as high-fives and clubhouse showers have taken a backseat to the money war playing out between the owners and players in a bid to start the 2020 season.

But they present more challenges for the league and players to get accustomed to if play does begin the season in July.

It is not yet known how MLB plans to police spitting, though the practice has also been banned by the Korean Baseball Organization, which recently began its seasons without fans. Players there, like here, have also been caught off guard by the rule, but there have been no reported incidents stemming from it.

“I want someone to find me a game in history where baseball players did not spit on the field,” Dan Straily, a pitcher for the KBO’s Lotte Giants who played for six MLB teams in eight years, told NPR in April. 

That’s probably unlikely.

Whether it’s sunflower seeds or chewing tobacco — both of which would be struck out under MLB’s proposal — baseball players have spit for centuries. In the 1800s, players chewed tobacco in order to “stimulate their saliva on dusty fields and moisten their gloves,” as detailed by CBS in 2014.  

Chewing tobacco might not be as common nowadays, thanks to a 2011 CBA limit on it, but spitting certainly is.

“If I’m spitting, I don’t remember spitting,” Braves pitcher Josh Tomlin told SI.