July 05, 2007 11:24 pm
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I’ve got to be frank (or is it frankfurter?) with you. I barely slept a wink the other night knowing that within hours the annual hot dog eating competition would be taking place.
There was tossing, not to mention turning. Far more staring at the ceiling than I like.
The suspense made brats (I mean knots) of my nerves, almost as if my two favorite NFL teams, Indianapolis and Green Bay, were about to play one another in a Super Bowl.
The stage was set: Could some scrawny American clod scarf down more weenies his Japanese counterpart, the Richard Petty of his field as a six-time champion, in the allotted time?
Pins and needles time, baby. Competition at its very finest.
And we thought former Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt, the man who in the 1960s thought up that little thing we call the Super Bowl, qualified as a sports marketing genius.
Truth be known, I didn’t watch these goobers, American Joey Chestnut and his opponent, Takeru Kobayashi, take indigestion to new heights. Nor have I ever tuned in to a hot dog eating competition because, contrary to what popular belief, it’s not a sport.
There’s not a ball, there’s not a puck. There’s not a racquet, there’s not a bat.
Yet earlier this week, ESPN ran previews of the event, quite possibly the network’s lowest point since airing one of the true stink-ola movies in cinematic history, “Season on the Brink,” five years ago (think “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” with a cameo by a plaid-wearing Brian Dennehy as Bob Knight).
Also demonstrating poor judgment is a premier national online sports Web site that found itself pulled in. Beneath the customary invitations to point and click — NFL, MLB, NHL, Tennis, Golf, etc. — is, and I’m not kidding, Competitive Eating.
There it recaps in great detail the edge-of-your-seat drama associated with Chestnut’s devouring of 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes compared to Kobayashi’s 63. There’s even a photograph with a wiener and some bun falling out of the mouth of a dazed-looking Chestnut.
Very attractive.
Are we as a nation that bored? Have we become so lukewarm toward Major League Baseball that televised face-stuffing must be used to plug gaps between the NBA Finals and the start of college and pro football?
Have the dog days of summer been replaced by the hot dog days of summer?
I’ve long thought that what America truly needed were hot dog-scarfing role models. It’s not like this country is battling a child obesity problem or anything. Or an obesity problem in general.
You do realize that as you read this know there are teens and adults alike purchasing packs of wieners and buns, then rushing home to determine his or her consumption limit in 12 minutes.
Perhaps the worst part of Chestnut’s triumph is that spectators at Coney Island actually exited with some sort of national air of superiority because the winner, who hails from San Jose, Calif., defeated the seemingly unbeatable competitor from the far away land.
“U-S-A. U-S-A. U-S-A.”
Um, people. This wasn’t the United States hockey team shocking the sports-watching world by defeating the Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics.
It’s hot dog consumption, nothing more or less, and it shouldn’t be televised nationally.
Then again, neither should poker and we are fed far too much of that.
Sports Editor Mike Beas can be reached at mike.beas@heraldbulletin.com.
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