Why are hot dogs the quintessential ballpark food?

 


When did the hot dog become the staple food for baseball?



    Have you ever attended a baseball game and suddenly ask yourself, why do they do this? The tradition of the 7th inning stretch or singing "Take me out to a ball game". What are the stories behind this odd traditions. The question today is when did the hot dog become food for baseball?

    We will have to travel back to the 1880s when baseball started to become a organized sport for people to enjoy. The root origin can be traced back to a German immigrant Chris Von Der Ahe. Chris owned the St. Louis Browns baseball team and started to sell his frankfurters at his games. The hot dog itself has roots from the German sausage traditions. 

    While Chris Von Der Ahe was the first to sell the hot dogs at baseball games. It was Harry Stevens' a British immigrant was able network concession stands selling hot dogs to ballparks across the country. 

    Prior to concession where sold at the ballpark, people would eat before or bring their food to the park. It was great vision of both Chris Von Der Ahe and Harry Stevens to see a need and fill that need. During that time America was receiving a large amount of German immigrants. A lot of those immigrants fell in love with the game of baseball and love the closely related German delicacy.

    Origin of how sausages became know to be hot dogs. A St. Louis butcher named Anton Feuchtwanger, would loan out white gloves to the customer to hold the piping hot sausage. When those white gloves where not returned and the white gloves had ran out. Anton come up with a long soft roll to do the job of the white glove. Charles Feltman was the first person to open a sausage stand on Coney Island and turned it into a empire. Until Charles bread slicer, Nathan Handwerker (Natan's Hotdogs) broke away and opened his own stand. 

    If anyone was more influential to the success of the hot dog becoming the staple food of baseball, the credit belongs to Harry Stevens. He can be given credit for networking concessions in ballparks as well. Harry saw the demand for snacks at the ballparks, and decided that all he needed was the business model, one company to provide snacks for the whole ballpark. 

    The story of the American baseball hot dog is a great story of the American dream. The freedom to prospers and entrepreneurship. 


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