by Joe Moag

Created on: September 02, 2009

When I was a kid I had the happy and once-in-a-lifetime experience of a total nexus between my favorite Cubs player and my favorite Wrigley Field food: Ron Santo pizzas. They were sold at the park (back in the early, early 70s); little round things, part cardboard, part catsup (not even Ketchup) and something I long for even now!

For better or for worse, mixing one's formative baseball experiences with food experiences seems, at least to me, inextricable. If you were late to the Pastime, maybe you associate baseball with some brand of beer that, except when at the park, you would never drink, but, if you wereto drink it outside the stadium, it would place you RIGHT BACK at opening day! If, on the other hand, your time at the yard stretches further back to your childhood, as does mine, then you have undoubtedly forged some primal associations between hot dogs and a third baseman, or malteds and the first green grass of the spring. Whatever your linkage is, I know that it is deeply embedded in your soul.

So, ever wonder about how this diabolical food/baseball co-dependency first gained foothold in America? Well, I did, and here's what I have learned (make sure that you have a nice bromide within arm's distance as you read on):

Let's start with the obvious. If you are looking to make some money by attracting thousands of people to an event, it is purely logical, given the nature of people, that if you really want to maximize revenues you should find something that will make the attending crowds pay money afterthey have already paid to enter the event. The answer: food and drink. Two and three hour events, in the open air heat of the summer, make for ideal captive audiences chomping at the bit to buy food and drink. Even the Romans had that figured out at the Coliseum, as did the Greeks at their amphitheatres before them.

Selling food at a ballgame is a no-brainer; people want to/have to eat. But what about the specific foodssold at baseball games? Not the myriad of assorted stuff sold today (where modern parks sell foods from 5 continents and every type of consumable in between). No, not that food. What about the mainstays? What about, as the song says, "peanuts and Cracker Jack?" And, allow me to add, what about hot dogs? How did these edibles (I use that term loosely) become the specific, national standards of food sold at baseball games for the past 100+ years? Let's get granular here!

The hot dog. I love 'em! Eat at least three every time I go to a Cubs

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