Smokeless tobacco might be officially banned from New York’s baseball stadiums this season, but its status as an iconic image of America’s pastime has been on its way out for years.

On Tuesday, the New York City Council voted 44-3 in favor of a smokeless tobacco ban at ticketed sporting events including those at Yankee Stadium and Citi Field. Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to sign the bill into law.

With that, a Major League Baseball player will be breaking the law if he steps to the plate in New York with a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth, spitting brown liquid to the dirt while he crouches into his batting stance.

In theory, children will no longer see that image and think tobacco and baseball go together.

“But they don’t anyway,” Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia said. “So it’s kind of pointless, to be honest with you.”

For years, smokeless tobacco played an iconic role in the game. Through the ’80s, ’90s and into the 2000s, it was commonplace to see a player shove tobacco behind his lip or go to the mound with a bulge in his cheek.

“Before you see a big ball of tobacco in the mouth,” Yankees first base coach Tony Pena said. “And now you see less and less of that.”

Pena is 58 years old and played Major League Baseball through the 80s and 90s. That was around the same time 35-year-old Sabathia was a kid learning the game.

“It felt like it was part of baseball,” Sabathia said. “I mean, watch The Sandlot movie (which has a scene about baseball players learning to chew). It was a part of baseball. But I don’t think (the ban) will be a big deal because it’s not really in the game anymore.”

Sabathia grew up at a time when Big League Chew – bubble gum shredded like chewing tobacco – was marketed to kids who wanted to look and feel like Major Leaguers.

But 22-year-old Luis Severino, the youngest player in Yankees camp, said he never made such a connection.

“When I grew up and played baseball, I didn’t see it too much,” he said.

Somewhere between Sabathia and Severino are 30-year-old closer Andrew Miller and 32-year-old left fielder Brett Gardner, each of whom said he used to chew tobacco but kicked the habit years ago.

“I feel like it’s not around as much,” Gardner said. “I can’t say I ever watched a baseball game, and seeing a Major League Baseball player dip or chew made me want to dip or chew.”

But Gardner did see it, while 24-year-old prospect Mason Williams said he never did.

“I didn’t look for it or notice it,” Williams said. “It was kind of irrelevant to me, actually. Now that times are changing, and I guess they’re starting to apply these rules or laws or whatever regulations, but I never noticed it when I was younger.”

In the Yankees clubhouse, there’s a sign offering help to any player looking to quit using tobacco, but the new law has been met largely with indifference. Some players, it seems, will simply hide their use, while most either don’t use tobacco or long ago learned to keep it out of the public eye. Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles already have similar laws.

“I don’t foresee anybody protesting or picketing,” Miller said.

Banning tobacco from a Major League Baseball stadium in 1990 might have been an issue. Banning it in 2016, at least from the players’ perspective, seems to be immaterial.

“I would say it was probably more of a thing back then than it is now,” Williams said. “I feel like back then it was so visible, I feel like everyone did it. It was known. Now, it’s not like that, obviously.”