A can of smokeless tobacco sits in the Minnesota Twins dugout before the start of the 2012 Opening Day game at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. (Rob Carr/Getty Images)

The Washington Nationals will begin a three-game series at the New York Mets’ Citi Field on Tuesday night, their first visit since the New York City City Council in March banned the use of smokeless tobacco at ticketed sporting events.

Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles passed similar laws before the 2016 season. Chicago did as well, but its ban does not go into effect until June and thus had no effect on the Nationals’ recent series at Wrigley Field. The use of smokeless tobacco — commonly referred to as “dip” or “chew” — has a long association with baseball, and many players still partake.

The 2011 collective bargaining agreement prohibits major league players and coaches from using smokeless tobacco during televised interviews and appearances and from carrying tobacco products on their person during games. But because of the new laws, any use of smokeless tobacco at Red Sox, Yankees, Mets, Giants and Dodgers home games has been illegal since Opening Day.

That can raise questions for visiting clubs during their first trips to cities with bans.

“I haven’t heard about anything; have you heard anything? When they bust you, do they keep it a secret, or . . . ?” Nationals Manager Dusty Baker asked Saturday with seemingly genuine curiosity.

“I don’t know anybody that dips,” Baker said with a sly smile that might as well have come with a wink and a nudge, too.

[Dusty Baker is making right calls for Nats, on and off the field]

Baker used smokeless tobacco before he started chewing Australian “Tea Tree Therapy” toothpicks instead. Some of his players use it every day. A handful chew constantly, on the field and in the dugout, and carry tins or pouches on the bench. Some use less frequently — pitchers on days they are not starting, for example. Some coaches and players are open about the habit. Others try harder to hide it.

“That’s political,” one National said, and he is correct: While baseball has banned tobacco use in minor league ballparks since the early 1990s, it cedes jurisdicition at the major league level to local authorities.

“How various cities enforce the local laws in place is up to them,” a league spokesperson said. “ . . . MLB’s expectation is that its personnel will comply with local laws as any other citizen must. Players or any on-field personnel found to have violated a law are subject to discipline from the commissioner.”

Violations of the minor league policy are rare, though not unheard of. Minor league coaches use; so do some minor league umpires. While Nationals players will sometimes carry around cups in which to spit while dipping, or keep tins or pouches of the stuff in plain sight, Nationals minor leaguers are advised not to do so. During a visit two weeks ago, for example, the Class AA Harrisburg dugout contained none of the signs of smokeless tobacco use prevalent in the Nationals Park dugout.

“We don’t address it [with our minor leaguers] other than it’s not allowed,” Nationals Director of Player Development Mark Scialabba said. “From a players-only standpoint, it’s against the rule, we don’t want to see it, and you shouldn’t be using it.”

Image or concern?

Anyone over the age of 18 can legally buy and use smokeless tobacco, and though the Citi Field ban extends to fans as well, more than one National pointed out that the ban holds players to a different standard than the average American.

“If they want to say, ‘Keep it out of your back pocket; keep it hidden’ just so it’s not on TV, I’m all for it,” Nationals first baseman Clint Robinson said. “I don’t want to promote it, because it is a disgusting habit. I wish I didn’t do it, but I do. So I’m not really a big fan of being told I can’t.

“But it is a rule. And I will adhere to it.”

Two other Nationals, neither of whom wanted to be quoted publicly, brought up how smokeless tobacco does not harm anyone but the user. Others pointed out that the bans are being implemented in stadiums where the advertisement and sale of alcohol are widespread. As harmful habits go, one player argued, at least smokeless tobacco’s harm is localized. Closer Jonathan Papelbon made a similar point.

[Minor League Monday: Trea Turner and Rafael Bautista setting the pace]

“I guess my thought on it is if you want to ban something that’s completely legal, you might as well ban sugar and all the other fattening foods they sell in the ballpark, too,” Papelbon said.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who signed the city’s ban into law just before the 2016 baseball season began, told ESPN that the bill is “very important for the health of our players and the city as a whole.”

“Young people look up to baseball players, and they look up to all athletes,” de Blasio said then.

Nationals shortstop Danny Espinosa, who dips regularly, expressed frustration with that line of thinking.

“People say the fact that kids look to us, we’re their role models, and they start chewing because of that. I never once as a kid looked at a major league baseball player and thought, ‘He’s chewing; I want to chew, too,’ ” Espinosa said. “I looked at Gary DiSarcina and Derek Jeter and all these great shortstops, and never once did I think, ‘Oh man, that guy chews. I want to chew like him.’ It was, ‘I like the way he plays, I want to play like him.’ ”

Hard habit to break

Nationals third base coach Bobby Henley stopped chewing last August after seven years, something he called “very difficult to do.” For those players addicted to the products, adhering to a ban is not as simple as choosing not to partake for a few games.

“I’m not very good at many things, but I was really good at chewing,” Henley said. “I know this: If [a ban] would have happened a couple years ago, that would have been really tough. As much as I was chewing, it would have been difficult to go in there and not do it for the four days.”

Henley now chews sunflower seeds during games, spraying the shells of “four or five bags of seeds” around the coach’s box each game.

“I probably drive the field crews crazy,” Henley said.

No Nationals player outlined any specific plans to evade the chewing tobacco rules, or stated an intent to do so — which, of course, does not mean they will not try. A few players, like their manager, asked about how exactly those rules will be enforced, still uncertain of how closely they will be watched.

Perhaps the new law will be a non-issue, as it seems to have been so far this season. Perhaps some players will have to alter their habits. Whatever they think of the laws, whatever their personal habits, the Nationals will play dozens of games in affected parks this season. They will play the first of those games Tuesday night.