Even with peppers, onions and mustard, something doesn't seem right.
The surroundings are working well enough. The public address guy is doing the lineups and the crowd filing into Oriole Park at Camden Yards along Eutaw Street is suitably done up in Os caps and khaki shorts on a perfect night for real green-grass baseball.
The discordant note is this "hot dog." Flick your air quote fingers for emphasis, as this item is a kind of ironic idea of "hot dog," not to mention a sign of these changing times of ours. Nothing against progress, you understand, but perhaps the folks in the lab still have some work to do here.
This vegetarian "hot dog" is an experiment; even the fellow who manages Camden Yards concessions says so. This ballpark has a history of being adventurous with the food offerings, and who's to complain about that. A few years ago, they had a vendor hawking little bottles of Gallo white and blush wine in the expensive seats on the field level. It was good for laughs -- "BRIE MAN, HEY BRIE MAN!" yelled one heckler -- but not profits.
Now this baby -- new to Camden Yards this season -- has been placed into the experienced hands of the Reid family, which has been running a hot dog stand at the ballpark for nine years. From the Dogs Plus stand at a prime spot on the Eutaw Street concourse behind the centerfield bleachers they dispense regular hot dogs and hot dogs filled with jalapeno cheese and three kinds of sausage and chicken sandwiches and turkey burgers, all seared just right.
The veggie dogs are nicely seared, too. Also, oddly orange. The color is closer to carrot than pink flesh, which only stands to reason. No animals died for this dog.
But will this dog hunt?
Four months into the season, the numbers are not encouraging.
Mmm, vegetable gum
At the moment, per-game average sales come to a dozen veggie dogs sold per game from the Dogs Plus stand, just enough to feed the starting Orioles lineup, plus the pitcher and a couple base coaches. Roy Reid says his family's stand alone probably sells between 350-450 regular hot dogs per game, part of the total of about 5,800 dogs of several varieties sold by the many Oriole Park concession stands and vendors combined.
Asked why they added vegetarian hot dogs to the Camden Yards menu, David J. Haines, concessions manager, says "we understand there are people out there who don't eat meat."
