TOP DOG
Ken Hoffman on how Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest will look different this year
Jun 26, 2020, 11:56 am
TOP DOG
Dear Coronavirus: I didn't mind when you interrupted the basketball season, or delayed the baseball season and may wreck the football season, but I've got a big problem when you mess with the single greatest sports event in America.
Because of the pandemic, the July 4 Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest will not be held in front of 35,000 screaming, sweaty fans on the corner of Surf and Stillwell in Coney Island. Instead the annual gorging of processed meat will be conducted without fans in an antiseptic, undisclosed location in New York, with full COVID-19 safety protocols in effect.
There will be one more important change for the Independence Day food fight. Instead of 15 competitors, there will be only five superstars at the trough in both the men's and women's event. Twelve-time men's champion Joey "Jaws" Chestnut will be back to defend his Yellow Mustard Belt, while ladies champ Miki Sudo will be shooting for her seventh-consecutive Pepto Bismol Pink Belt.
As usual, Nathan's Famous will blunt criticism for promoting gluttony as sport by donating 100,000 hot dogs to charity. By the way, the announced attendance of 35,000 fans is brought to you by the same accounting firm that used to claim that 400,000 people attended the Thanksgiving Day Parade in downtown Houston. A more accurate figure on Turkey Day: around 25,000, and that's being generous.
Chestnut, while admitting he will miss the fan support this year, says the sterile, climate-controlled conditions may help him break his own record of 74 hot dogs in 10 minutes.
"There's a little bit of a bonus 'cause we're gonna be eating in air conditioning and there are less eaters, so they're making less hot dogs, so they may taste better," he told TMZ. "If I'm in the perfect rhythm, 77 is possible."
Chestnut practically promising a new record ranks up there with Joe Namath guaranteeing a Jets Super Bowl win, Muhammad Ali predicting which round he'd knock out Sonny Liston and Babe Ruth calling his shot. Because of my personal admiration for Chestnut, I will overlook that he should have said "fewer eaters" and "fewer hot dogs." But Jaws isn't here for a grammar lesson, he's here to eat - like no one's ever eaten before.
I have personal history with the July 4 hot dog hijinks. I was a judge for both the men's and women's events for 10 years, making me the longest-running judge in the contest's 104-year history. I also was at the center of the biggest controversy in Coney Island history, but more on that later.
I worked my way up the ranks. My first contest, in 2009, they assigned me to count the hot dogs for a no-name rookie eater at the end of the table. As the years rolled by, I worked my way up the ladder, until 2015, when I opened my assignment envelop and saw the names Matt "Megatoad" Stonie and Miki Sudo. Fans of the gastronomical arts know that was the year Stonie defeated the legendary Chestnut. It's called the greatest upset in sports history.
After the contest, CNN asked to interview me, but I demurred because I had chunks of hot dog and wet buns on my shirt. It wasn't a fashion-forward look. CNN said, how about if you clean up and come to our studios near Columbus Circle in Manhattan? Fine. That afternoon I sat in a small room, wearing makeup, and stared at a robotic camera while anchorman Jonathan Mann interviewed me from CNN International studios in London. Let the record show that I may have made an R-rated joke, which Mann found funny, but was edited out during replays that night.
In 2016, I achieved the height of the hot dog judging profession – I was assigned to count Joey Chestnut's franks. Not only that, I was in front of Miki Sudo, too. They both won. I was back in charge of counting for Chestnut and Sudo in 2017 and 2018. They both won both times again. That made seven champions in a row for me. Hot dog historians call it the record that will never be broken.
During my 10 years judging the Super Bowl of Consumption, I noticed two eaters suffering a "reversal of fortune." That means vomiting. In both cases, the eaters ate their vomit, which almost made me vomit. I was there when vegan protestors threw fake blood on the judges. I was there when former champion Takeru Kobyaski was arrested for crashing the contest Clubber Lang-style.
The year of the great scandal and my personal shame was 2018. As usual, I was assigned Chestnut. Here's some inside baseball: each of the big-time eaters is assigned two judges, one to count the hot dogs, one to flip over the numbers so the crowd and ESPN can tell who's leading. On this day, I was the flipper. As hilarious emcee George Shea counted down 10-9-8, etc., my partner (the counter) yelled to me, "I can't see Joey!" It was true, the judges' platform was lower than in past years, plus ESPN had crowded the platform with its goon helpers. Plus Chestnut brings a coach who was screaming cheers for him next to us. It was a scene, all right.
With my partner unable to see Chestnut clearly, he was only guessing at the number of hot dogs the champ was eating. Whatever my partner yelled in my ear, that's the number I flipped over. When the final bell rang, I had 64 hot dogs on my scoreboard. Chestnut immediately leaned forward and yelled, "You f-'d up!" Emcee Shea let me have it, too. I wanted to holler back, "I was just holding up whatever the other guy told me!"
There was a 10-minute delay before ESPN reviewed the tape and Chestnut was credited with 74 hot dogs, a new world record. I took the heat for the mishap because my miscounting partner high-tailed it out of there. I think he was somewhere on the New Jersey Turnpike by the time they announced Chestnut the winner with his correct total. That night, I was called a "weenie" on newscasts across the U.S. Newspapers were equally corny the next day. Weenie? That's the best you got? It's practically a compliment. I was interviewed on morning radio shows in New York and Washington D.C. John Granato interviewed me on ESPN 97.5 in Houston. He didn't stop at weenie.
The highlight for me, and which almost made the whole incident worthwhile, I was the guest on the Fink Beats the Stomach, the highest-rated podcast dedicated to the sport of competitive eating. It's also the only podcast dedicated to the sport of competitive eating. I'm on Episode 75, it's still online.
It’s go time! While the Astros are not the juggernaut they were over the more than half-decade stretch from 2017 through 2022 that yielded regular seasons with 101, 103, 106, and 107 wins, four American League pennants, and two World Series Champions, as the saying goes, they ain’t dead yet. There is no superpower in the American League West the Astros need to overcome. In fact, the American League as a whole is grossly inferior to the National League. As a result, a fifth Astros’ AL title in this era is not some absurd fantasy, though it is certainly unlikely. But winning the pennant is unlikely for every AL team, so if you’re a fan of the Astros there is nothing wrong with a “Why not us?” mentality. On the other hand, the floor for the 2025 Astros is lower going into a season than it has been in almost a decade. The lineup has numerous question marks, and if the terrific trio atop the Astros’ starting rotation (Framber Valdez, Hunter Brown, and Ronel Bronco) runs into injury or performance issues the Astros would have serious problems. That the Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners both finish ahead of the Astros is clearly plausible. Play ball!
Astros history lives in these moments
It is simple fact that time marches on, but it is still amazing that the Astros are beginning their second quarter-century of play at what for its first two seasons was called Enron Field, then for the past 23 seasons Minute Maid Park, and now Daikin Park. That’s 25 seasons in the books, at least 26 more to come, with the Astros a few years ago having extended their lease through 2050. In non-specific order, I have twenty easily come-to-mind most spine-tingling moments at the ballpark. If you want 25 for 25 years, I leave five more to you.
Not all spine-tinglers on the home field are generated by the home team. Here are three produced by visiting players. In 2001, Barry Bonds smashed his 70th home run of the season to tie Mark McGwire’s single season Major League record. We know what went into the home run numbers of that era, but it was still jaw-dropping stuff. Bonds would finish the season with 73 homers. Game five of the 2005 National League Championship Series, with the Astros one out from winning their first ever pennant, Albert Pujols launched a Brad Lidge hanging slider that might still be airborne if not for the glass wall above the train tracks. It may be the most instantaneous crowd delirium to utter silence moment ever. It turned a 4-2 Astros’ lead into a crushing 5-4 loss. But, the next game Roy Oswalt pitched the Astros to that pennant in St. Louis. Lastly, the second game of the 2013 season, Rangers’ pitcher Yu Darvish retired the first 26 Astro batters before Marwin Gonzalez smacked a ball through Darvish’s legs up the middle for a base hit. Soooooo close to a perfect game. Only 22 perfect games have been thrown in MLB’s modern era (1900-today).
Now to Astro achievements. Fudging a bit by including Roger Clemens since it’s not for one specific moment. But the Rocket’s starts with the Astros were events. Speaking of Hall of Famers, Craig Biggio’s 3000th hit is an obvious list-maker. Jeff Kent is not a Hall of Famer but he was better in the batter’s box than any second baseman elected after Joe Morgan. Kent won game five of the 2004 NLCS with a bottom of the ninth three-run bomb to end what had been a scoreless game. Alas, the Astros would lose the next two games and the series in St. Louis. The crowd went much wilder over Kent’s homer than over Chris Burke’s series-winning homer over the Atlanta Braves in a 2005 NL Division Series. Burke’s homer came in the 18th inning, so sheer exhaustion held down the decibel level a little. A sleeper for the list occurred earlier in that same game, when Brad Ausmus of all people hit a two-out game-tying homer to get the game into extra innings.
Four no-hitters have been thrown by Union Station. Working backwards: Ronel Blanco last season, Framber Valdez in 2023, a combined job started by Aaron Sanchez in 2019, and the first in 2015 by Mike....yes, Fiers.
And now to the grandest home park moments of this Platinum Era in Astros’ history. Carlos Correa authored two of them, each in a game two of the American League Championship Series. In 2017 he doubled home Jose Altuve with the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. That came off of Aroldis Chapman who shall appear once more in this column. In 2019 Correa tied the series at one win apiece with a walk-off homer. Yordan Alvarez also gets a pair of entries. You know, Yordan hit just .192 in the 2022 postseason. But talk about making your hits count. In game one of those playoffs, ALDS vs. Seattle, it was a two-out three-run walk-off blast off of Robbie Ray to give the Astros an 8-7 win. Then in the final game of those playoffs, it was a sixth inning gargantuan three-run launch to dead center turning a 1-0 deficit into a 3-1 lead.
That leaves four moments that are 100 percent non-negotiable entries. While not dramatic (4-0 final score), the payoff warrants inclusion of the Astros winning Game seven of the 2017 ALCS over the Yankees. Similarly, while the moment of victory lacked drama (4-1 final), how could one exclude the Astros winning the World Series on home turf in 2022. Finally, for my money the two most pulsating, goosebump-inducing, viscerally exciting moments at 501 Crawford Street. In one of the most scintillating games ever played in any sport, Alex Bregman’s bottom of the 10th inning single gave the Astros’ their epic 13-12 win over the Dodgers in game five of the 2017 World Series. Then in 2019, Jose Altuve’s game six homer ended the ALCS (I warned you Aroldis).
Here’s to the new season! Join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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