I remember my first baseball hot dog like it was yesterday. Sitting under the bright sun with the perfectly green field stretched out in front of me, I gently held the plump pink dawg, dressed only with the vivid yellow mustard of ballparks and hockey rinks. Amidst peanut shells crackling underfoot, I took that first salty bite as the ump called “strike three!” and I tasted the freedom of summer.
At least that’s the mythology I’ve created.
You see, I came late to baseball. The first love of my life was a Cubs fan and I was too young to understand. He took me to Wrigley Field and I complained about the cold. We sat and drank bad Busch Lite and maybe I ate some nachos, but he loved the Cubbies more than me, so I couldn’t abide them.
The second love of my life showed me the real game as we sat on the couch watching TV and eating pasta with glass after glass of Barolo. I was comfortable in my skin and able to admit ignorance of just what defined a Texas Leaguer. I am now an idiot for April.
These days, as my family piles into the car to head down to the ballpark, the discussion volleys between “Who’s on the mound tonight?” and “Are you going to get a pretzel? Will cotton candy be allowed? Can she get a hot dog AND a burger? What’s the rule on nachos tonight?”
Everything in my life seems to, rightly or wrongly, relate to food. And the baseball I have come to love (the game filled with its own legends, mythologies, ghosts and superstitions) deserves a grand memory, a significant food moment. But most of my hot dog memories are like Josh Gibson, I’m left wondering what could have been.
Tonight I’ll sit in my plastic blue seat and unwrap the foil of this season’s first Dome Dog. But while its hard to beat the magic of the myth, with every salty bite, every base hit, every kid of mine screaming SA-WING BATTER at the top of their lungs, the myth fades just a bit.
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