Opening Day Traditions

Baseball is full of superstitions. From Joe DiMaggio always touching second base on his way in from the outfield. Or David Ortiz tapping his leg and spitting in his right hand. To Mark Macwire always making sure he “took his creatine” before heading out for the game, baseball is full of fun traditions.

My personal opening day tradition started as a complete accident. A happy accident but an accident nonetheless.

Way back in 2011 I went home for lunch after a rather exhausting morning of pretending to make sales calls and made my self a couple hotdogs for lunch. I clicked the TV on and noticed the Twins(yuck) were on. Neat! Baseball is back! So I went back to the station and two of my fellow portly co-workers were talking about the brats they had for lunch. You can’t paint a more Midwestern thing to happen.

I told them I had a couple hotdogs because I figured if I’m out here talking about hotdogs I can at least look busy and not floundering as a sales rep. They looked at me and said, “You wanna be a part of our hotdog eating contest?” I said, “Well I can’t really eat a lot in one sitting and honestly that sounds like the fattest thing ever.” To which they responded, “No, it’s overall during the baseball season.” “Oh! Sure, I’ll play!” I gleefully retort!

That year I ate 183 cased meat products, gained 35 pounds and came in second. But the tradition of eating hot dogs on opening day remains! Now I just need to find a cool Budweiser to wash all this hotdog down.