With baseball season here the hot dog is once again moving to the forefront of the sports gourmet list. The National Hot Dog & Sausage Council is making sure that we get the facts.
While the starting lineups of many Major League baseball teams may have changed since the celebratory champagne was corked last season, one thing that remains steady is the unwavering popularity of hot dogs in our nation’s ballparks.
The quintessential “Iron Man” of stadium snacks, the hot dog hit a home run in the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council’s annual survey of Major League stadiums again this year, with the NHDSC forecasting that ballparks around the country will consume more than 30 million hot dogs this season — an impressive feat and enough to round the bases 41,776 times.
When it comes to individual stadiums, Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets, topped the survey again this year for largest projected hot dog consumption in 2008. According to the survey, Mets fans will consume more than 2.7 million hot dogs this year. Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox is the runner up, with fans projected to consume more than 1.7 million hot dogs. Third place goes to Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, with approximately 1.5 million hot dogs expected to be consumed.