Column: To be frank, Illinois residents love their ballpark hot dogs

Chicago Tribune

14-04-2025

With turmoil all around in recent weeks, an escape to big league baseball is one way of calming fears of what the next three years in America may look like. It worked so well on the American psyche in past decades that the game became our national pastime.
Along with that ballpark visit comes enjoying an all-American hot dog. Despite many major league teams pushing various sophisticated food offerings, the classic red hot remains the most popular game-day food for sports fans in Illinois.
That factoid comes from FlashPicks, a betting and news brand that mined Google search volume data from January through March in each state to find 50 of the most popular foods fans wolf down during games. Illinoisans logged 54,300 online searches, an average of 18,100 searches every month, for the traditional sporting-event food.
That mirrors a 2021 study by the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (doesn't every food group have one of these?) that showed the Cubs average more than one million hot dogs and sausage sales per baseball season. The council data hounds also found that hot dog sales are linked to higher team winning percentages.
Those nitrate-soaked processed sausages may be bad for our health, experts tell us, but if they bring home another National League or American League pennant, they may be worth the gamble. Moderation, as in many an eating or drinking endeavor, is always recommended, including rationing those Vienna all-beef wieners.
Besides the normal baseball foodstuffs in this early part of the season, the Cubs introduced a roast beef jibarito sandwich, which apparently has its roots in the city's Puerto Rican community, according to a Chicago Tribune story earlier this month. Instead of bread, the fillings are surrounded by two fried plantains with garlic aioli and a sweet red pepper for garnish.
Plantains in a North American ballpark? Does the White House know of this incursion?
Then, there is a baseball-shaped doughnut the Cubs have on the menu this season. Doughnuts? Like crying, there's no doughnuts in baseball.
If that's the case, time to bring back those ancient Oscar Mayer Smokie Links, which were banned from the Friendly Confines since the 1980s. And not those ersatz 'Wrigley Field Smokies' they tried to pass off a few seasons past.
Meanwhile at Rate Field- formerly Guaranteed Rate Field, Cellular Field and Comiskey Park- options for White Sox fans this season include Korean dogs, bubble waffles and chili-crunch noodles. One of the Sox 'hot dogs,' according to the Tribune, is named 'El Diablo,' a mozzarella stick topped with Flaming Hot Cheetos. Then there's one that includes marshmallows, Fruity Pebbles and sweet condensed milk.
Waffles? Fruity Pebbles? Marshmallows? Sounds a tad woke for the South Side.
If you have traveled to other baseball stadiums, you have seen what they serve fans. Like the signature Dodger Dog at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles or Fenway Franks at Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox.
Perhaps if you're at Miller Field in Milwaukee for a Brewers game, you indulge in a bratwurst packed with onions, kraut and special mustard. Or taste a Polish sausage at Northwestern Medicine Field off Randall Road in Geneva, when the Kane County Cougars open their regular season on May 8.
Turns out the Land of Lincoln is one of eight states where hot dogs are the most popular game day food. The second favorite game day food for sports fans in Illinois is a hamburger, ahead of burritos in third. Nationally, hamburgers were named the favorite food of sports fans, followed by hot dogs.
'In Illinois, fans like to stick to the staple hot dog, which is synonymous with any sport, as they cheer on their favorite team,' a spokesperson for FlashPicks doggedly pointed out.
Americans didn't invent the hot dog, but the nation's German immigrants refined the wiener from Vienna and frankfurter from Frankfurt to a preferred game-day cuisine. There are now dozens of ways to serve hot dogs at the ballpark.
Food historians believe it was Chris Von de Ahe, the German-American owner of the old St. Louis Browns, who was the first to introduce hot dogs, which some contend was invented in the city abutting Illinois, to his ballpark. Others maintain concessionaires at the New York Polo Grounds, home of the Giants until they bolted for San Franciso in 1957, were the first to sell hot dogs at a baseball game in 1901.
Regardless, hot dogs have become a fan favorite at the nation's ball fields. Baseball fans consume millions of them every season and at other sporting events.
There is another factor in our love of ballpark hot dogs. Ever tried to balance an order of cheese-smothered nachos, a beer and a scorecard while on the alert for an errant foul ball?
It's difficult. Unlike handling a foil-wrapped hot dog tossed from a vendor which is easily devoured and washed down with a hoppy beverage. Batter up!