Forget The Game - It’s the Stadium Food That Counts

Gone are the days of uniformed vendors shouting out peanuts, popcorn and hot dogs at your favorite ballpark. It’s all about the food now as unusual foods seem to be loading up the baseball concession stands and creating all the excitement.

The West Michigan Whitecaps – a team I’m sure you passionately follow – actually has an annual food cutting tasting to determine new food offerings and have fans vote for their favorite. Last year’s duck tenders and waffles made the cut. The Phillies’ Triple-A affiliate, the IronPigs, http://www.milb.com/index.jsp?sid=t1410 wear jerseys with images of strips of bacon across their chests.

The New York Mets’ CitiField offers David Chang’s FUKU Spicy Fried Chicken Sandwich with habanero, pickles, and fuku butter.  

The Arizona Diamondbacks’ have a Cheeseburger Dog for $10 a giant hot dog made from char-grilled hamburgers that are ground up, mixed with chopped bacon, pickles, green onion and cheddar cheese, formed into a foot-long tube and then frozen and breaded, seasoned and dunked in the deep fryer, and topped with more bacon, lettuce, tomato, and secret sauce. 

Then there's the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Cracker Jack and Mac Dog for $11 – it’s exactly what you'd expect – served on Naan bread with salted caramel sauce on top.

The Atlanta Braves’ Burgerizza might win the contest when it comes to fat and calories – and cost. It's $26 for a 20 oz. burger with bacon and five slices of cheddar cheese that has two 8-inch pepperoni pizzas as the bun – unless you prefer two waffles made out of pressed tater tots sandwiching bacon, melted cheese, and jalapenos, with Coca-Cola-infused ketchup called the Tater Tot Chop.

Some say that baseball is a bit slow moving and boring, perhaps these sandwiches can keep those in the grandstands entertained.  The good news is that we haven’t seen these in supermarkets’ prepared food sections…yet.

Looking forward to football season.