The hot dog eating world has its buns in a knot today after scandal hit the sacred stage at the Nathan’s annual contest in Coney Island. As three-time world hot dog–eating champion Joey Chestnut took the prize over 15 rivals, former champion Takeru Kobayashi rushed the stage and was arrested for trespassing and resisting arrest. That is nothing to relish.
The organizer of the event, Major League Eating, was requiring all competitors to sign a contract, but Kobayashi refused. Major League Eating then barred him from the competition.
That allowed Chestnut to sail to victory with just 54 hot dogs — well short of his world record of 68 hot dogs.
Kobayashi is a member of International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE) (yes, there is such an organization) and the past holder of the world record for hot dog consumption.
With a simple transfer, this could produce an epic showdown with Morgan County Jail where the sheriff fed prisoners nothing but surplus corn dogs.
My biggest concern is that this conflict is robbing the sport of competitive eating of its inherent dignity and refinement. These athletes are role models of over-eating children everywhere. What are they going to think when they see a dog demigod like Kobayashi carted away in a police car?
This was Kobayashi’s showdown with an actual bear:
Source: Brooklyn Paper
FYI:
Have we become almost know-nothings?
Published: Monday, July 05, 2010, 5:48 AM
John Farmer/The Star-Ledger
The defining character of this moment in time is best described by paraphrasing a famous line from Winston Church: Never have so many known so little about so much. We’re talking here about the experts” we look to for consensus about how to tackle big problems. Mostly, they can’t agree on anything — the economy, Wall Street, the Gulf oil spill, energy policy, Afghanistan, global warming and atmospheric pollution. They’re clueless.
The great universities turn out economists by the hundreds with degrees out to here. But they can’t decide whether the fix for the world’s fractured economy is stimulative spending or a penny-pinching austerity worthy of Ebenezer Scrooge.
The confusion around the Gulf oil hemorrhage is just as bad. What to do? Drill relief wells? Soak up the surface oil with tankers? Just blow the damn thing up?
Gulf coast politicians want the leak cured and beaches cleaned, but they still want to drill, baby, drill; stopping would cost jobs. They bemoan their great ecological tragedy and plead for federal help while simultaneously urging tourists to “come on down, the water’s fine.”
Afghanistan is no better. We’re either winning there or losing, depending on which experts you believe. What’s more, we’re either getting out of Afghanistan beginning next July, as President Obama has said, or we’re in for the long haul, as Gen. David Petraeus suggested to Congress last week.
Risk-taking on Wall Street must be reined in with tighter regulation, we’re told by Democrats. Tighten the regs and you cripple borrowing (and banker bonuses), say Republicans, especially those beholden to the bankers for campaign cash.
It’s no different with climate change. Democrats generally want to crack down on pollution by penalizing industrial carbon emissions which, Republicans insist, will make us all poorer even if we all live longer. The GOP apparently thinks it’s better to put up with the pollution on the grounds that while you may die earlier, you’ll die wealthier.
Tough choice there.
Remember the Swine Flu pandemic? Some pandemic. It claimed fewer victims than regular flu and much of the expensive vaccine purchased to counter it had to be destroyed. Can’t seem to get anything right anymore, can we?
How did we go from the know-it-all society to the know-almost-nothing nation?
Hard to say. There’s probably no one answer and things are more complex these days. But some blame rests with the culture of constant confrontation and disagreement fostered (for big bucks) by the talking heads on radio and cable TV. Whoever says “X” must be confronted by someone who says “Y.” It has leached into Washington politics where consensus is condemned as weakness and stalemate is deemed smart politics.
Both parties suffer in some degree from this need for compulsive disagreement, but Republicans moreso. Michael Steele, the Republican national chairman, heard demands for his ouster within his own party last week when he labeled Afghanistan “a war of Obama’s choosing” and suggested it’s time to bailout.
But Steele’s got nothing on House GOP leader John Boehner, he of the permanent sun tan. Last week Boehner got in hot water for equating the current economic crisis — with millions unemployed — to an “ant,” causing other Republicans to give him a wide berth.
Someone should caution Boehner that too much sun lamp time can fry your brains.
If there’s any consolation in this catalogue of incompetence, it’s the knowledge that our friendly adversaries in Moscow are just as clueless. As evidence, there are the spies they sent to penetrate such hotbeds of high-level U.S. secrets as Montclair.
In 10 years they turned up not one classified document. Nada. They also went native, suburban-style, from all appearances. They got arrested, but not for espionage, for money laundering and lying, the equivalent of mopery. Shades of Maxwell Smart or Inspector Couseau.
Moscow could have gotten more for its money with a good newspaper subscription. But how would they know? Their experts are as clueless as ours.
No one anywhere seems to know much about anything anymore
Oh brother ……
Any dignity competitive eating may have had, was in some glutton’s imagination. Just watch Adam Richman on “Man vs Food”, he just gets chubbier and chubbier and more and more obnoxious every season on the Travel Network, stuffing outrageously spicy or big food portions down his maw. Truely cringeworthy. And what the hell does stuffing food down your gullet in large quantities and short time frames have to do with travel or sports?
-A Food Abuser In Recovery
Boy, I could use a few dogs about now…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmPRHJd3uHI&hl=en_US&fs=1]
This is the closest Thread Song I could think of that was available on YouTube (besides Lead Zipperin’s and Mickey Mouse Club–same difference in my opinion) .
No Buns, No Puns, No Fun.
So. Joey is the weiner, and this is not a gag.
One thang fur sure n’ fur sartin’– aint no subject misses ‘Fesser T. He is sartinly a man what leaves no Tern unstoned…er, stone unturned, since stonin’ Terns is a’gin United States Code Title 16, Chapter 7, Subchapter II, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act within the USFWS; to wit, a’throwin’ rocks at migratory birds is an attempt to “take” or “harassess” the critter.
Does anyone have the details on the contract dispute? Was this an issue between federations/leagues, or between Kobyashi and the league?
Enjoyed the buns I mean puns Mr. Turley 🙂 Is his name really Joey Chestnut? On a serious note I honestly don’t know whether to be amused or sad about this article.
It really can’t be a true competition unless the best get to compete. I don’t blame Kobayashi for not signing the contract. Let’s hope the leagues merge and there’s a HOT DOG SUPER BOWL.
That is inspirational lady.
I see a chuby kid in heartache as their idol is arrested and taken away in handcuffs.
He who sees all and is all has spoken. Please do not pull the drape back again.
Kobayashi is a legend – it is like not allowing Michael Jordan not play basketball.