Look: Baseball team unveils 'cotton candy hot dog'
One of baseball’s most venerated bits of musical lore invites those who take someone out to the ballgame to buy them some peanuts and Cracker Jack.
But stadium food has evolved a long way since Jack Norworth sang those words for the first time back in 1908. For starters, he makes no mention of a “red hot,” not long thereafter re-dubbed a hot dog and the most iconic stadium food in all of sports.
But even if he had slipped a reference to a hot dog into his baseball song, there’s no way Norworth could possibly have seen what the Double-A minor league Erie SeaWolves put on their menu at the old ballgame Saturday afternoon.
As part of a “Salute to Candy,” Erie’s mad scientist concessionaires created a hot dogfeaturing cotton candy as the bun and Nerds candy where the mustard ought to be.
Cotton Candy hot dog, covered in nerds!!! @FaedoAlex gives it a try! pic.twitter.com/BuCGb8izMV
— Erie SeaWolves (@erie_seawolves) June 23, 2018
And while it’s an intriguing concept, some of Erie’s players will probably get called up to the major leagues before the hot dog does.
The concept may sound insane on its surface, but the combination of salty and sweet has been a big food trend these days.
After all, we’ve got things like glazed bacon, which is basically this concept — cured, salted meat product wrapped in sugar — and salted caramel, so why not cotton candy hot dogs?
Perhaps it’s because of the whole fruit-flavored Nerds thing and the fact that cotton candy has a tendency to by default taste like bubble gum.
The whole Sugar Rush Night was, like reaction to the candy-floss hot dog, an up-and-down sort of affair.
For starters, after Erie lost the first game of what was supposed to be a doubleheader against the Pirates’ affiliate the Altoona Curve 5-3, heavy rain moved into Western Pennsylvania and wiped out the nightcap.
If there’s a bright side to that, there was an opportunity for some science. After all, when it rains, you can generally still eat a hot dog with a bread bun; the bread will eventually get soggy but it takes a good while standing in the rain for that to happen.
One wonders how long a cotton candy bun would last even in a sweaty hand on a hot summer day, never mind a downpour.
But fans still had a good time at the park, the essence of what minor league baseball is all about.
Quite a day for the @erie_seawolves. #ChevyBaseball in the AM. Team effort to work our way back from heavy afternoon rain. Bent the internet with a cotton-candy wrapped hot dog. Made a kid’s day w/ a $1K+ Sugar Rush Night prize. Enjoyed postgame fireworks. #ArrrErie #MiLBisFun pic.twitter.com/qagOenXgHy
— Greg Coleman (@SeaWolvesGM) June 24, 2018
And that wasn’t the only bit of weirdness going on with cotton candy at the game. There was a “cotton candy ball” the team debuted, and one can only guess that a scoop of ice cream wrapped in cotton candy tastes like diabetes.
NEW Cotton Candy Ball at @erie_seawolves: Ice Cream + Sprinkles In Cotton Candy Cloud 🍭🍭 pic.twitter.com/fvbS4nokUA
— Kari Steele (@karicsteele) June 24, 2018
But you have to tip your hat to the team. In an age when everyone is losing their mind over childhood obesity and signing on to cutting their carbs, one baseball team’s brave stand against the food police shows that there’s still a place for sweet treats in America.
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