Take me out to the ballgame…and buy me some ballpark franks! America’s favorite pastime always conjures up fond memories of rooting for the home team with one hand and holding a delicious hot dog in the other. Actor Humphrey Bogart once said it best: “A hot dog at the ballpark is better than steak at the Ritz.”
How did hot dogs and baseball ever team up? There are two versions to this story. The first begins in St. Louis, where Chris von der Ahe, owner of the St. Louis Browns major league baseball team, served the first ballpark frankfurters in 1893. The second—according to Gerald Cohen, who wrote a book on the history of hot dogs—takes place on a cold day in April when Harry Stevens started selling sizzling sausages in rolls to clear a profit when no one was buying his ice cream.
Stevens may have supposedly started the trend, but he didn’t coin the phrase “hot dog.” Cohen attributes that to a cartoonist named T. A. Dorgan. While sitting up in the press box at the New York Polo Grounds, he drew little sausages with tails and legs. He wanted to call them dachshund (as in the adorable dog breed with an elongated body and stubby legs) sausages, but when he couldn’t spell it, he went with “hot dogs.”
According to the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council (yes, this actually exists), America’s love affair with franks is still red hot. They predict that 21,378,064 hot dogs will be sold in U.S. ballparks this season alone. Many stadiums have even renamed their specialty beef-n-buns sandwich: Chicago Dog is the favorite of the Cub fans and the Fenway Frank is number one in Boston. There are the Twins Dogs, the Dodger Dog, Cincinnati Cheese Coney, and the Texas Corn Dog.
Beyond the baseball stadium, the next best place to enjoy a hot dog is New York’s Coney Island, where some may argue the “hot dog” originated in the 1870s. The internationally famous Hot Dog Eating Contest has been held here—specifically at the original Nathan’s Franks stand—every July since 1916. The 2009 winner is reigning American champ Joey Chestnut with a world-record of 68 franks! How many are you planning to eat this Fourth of July?
[Photography courtesy of the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council's Facebook page]
Published on July 1, 2010
While there are many sites today dedicated to the pursuit of fashion and style, here at MRK Style we approach these subjects through a collector’s lens. Through exploring how people relate to Art, Family, Fashion, Food, Film and Travel—essentially life’s various, everyday obsessions—we reflect on how we all live with the things we love. 
Try Facebook application
Try iPhone application