Hot Diggety Dog

What can be any more U.S.A. than when it’s summertime and you have a beer in one hand and a hotdog in the other? Cute here, once more going rogue for this blog as Cutest is on a different quest.

What better way to put your mindset into a summer groove than by attending a hotdog festival, right here in River City KC? Since 2013, this celebration of all things hotdog blends in America’s favorite (before Patrick Mahomes reunited us with football) sports pastime: baseball, with hotdogs.

Proceeds from part of the festival’s income benefits the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Construction is underway of a dedicated structure to house the many museum artifacts and to better relay the story of that league and its many great players. This will be constructed near the 18th & Vine retail district.

To help achieve more exposure of the NLBMs’ future home, the hotdog gathering was transferred from the 18th & Vine streets to the southeast lawn of the WW 1 Memorial. A concession stand, several food trucks, an entertainment stage and the usual assortment of retail tents selling everything from t-shirts to windows dotted the landscape.

Just past the entrance gate, Oscar Myer had one of their eight, nationwide wandering Wienermobiles parked on the lawn. There, two recent college grads, now ambassadors for O.M., answered, what else, hotdog questions and passed out wiener whistles. Important questions like the number of hotdogs sold annually (150 million on the 4th of July alone, of an estimated 20 billion annually in the U.S.) or the number Joey Chestnut ate this year (70 and a half in fewer than 11 minutes, again winning the fabulous Mustard Belt).  Who made the first hot dogs in the U.S.?  Complicated.  See this, as it looks like a pretty good source, if you're as fascinated with this topic as I. 

Strolling beyond the dog on wheels, I visited the concession stand. The menu consisted of, wait for it, hotdogs! To wash down the four-dollar bun with dog, four buck beers (take note of that, Arrowhead management) were for sale.

Now with beer and dog in hand I put on my official blogger’s press hat and continued to investigate the remaining grounds. In front of the stage was a VIP fenced-off area where if you paid double the price of the regular entry fee, you could sit in a chair at a table and receive two hotdogs and two beers. Later, five different musical groups took turns entertaining the audience until 11 PM.

Those outside of the VIP corral brought blankets and lawn chairs to witness the various acts.

Surprising to me, there were no information tents outlining what the new NLB museum was going to look like or what their mission in the long-term is. 

Overall, I would give this slice of summer entertainment a solid B. Good location, good hot dogs and superb musical  groups. A wider variety of retail tents with better merchandise and the above-mentioned need for NLB education would have elevated my score.

At the end of my adventure, I merrily tooted my Oscar Myer wiener whistle to the company national anthem, which I know you remember, as I found my way to the parking lot.

Stares were minimal.