As a kid, I was way too small and slow to even be an average athlete.
I could make shots on a basketball court in a non-game setting if no one was within about 10 feet from me, I had a little bit of skill at chasing fly balls as an outfielder, and I might have been an above average ping pong player.
Basically, though, I sucked – and I had so little confidence in my athletic ability that I never even attempted to try out for a sports team.
In retrospect, though, I could have been a great athlete.
How could I have been a great athlete when I wasn’t even decent in baseball, basketball, football, golf, hockey, soccer, tennis or any other activity that was considered a sport in the 1970s? The answer to that contradiction lies in the greatest sport that has ever been invented – competitive eating.
If I knew competitive eating was a sport when I was a teenager and knew that it was possible for a tiny person like myself to outeat a huge person, I might have trained to become a competitive eater. I only weighed about 140 pounds when I graduated high school, but I think I could have been the Takeru Kobayashi of 1970s eaters. Kobayashi, who burst onto the competitive eating scene in 2001, is listed as packing 128 pounds on his 5-feet-8-inch frame.
And competitive eating was a sport in the 1970s. According to Wikipedia, competitive eating has been a sport for a long time, although the contests were mostly at events like county fairs and I’m guessing that not too many people paid attention to the results. The Wikipedia entry on competitive eating, which is also known as speed eating, has a photo of a 1923 eating contest.
The sport began getting more attention when Nathan’s Famous Corporation launched a hot dog eating contest in 1972 in Coney Island. The winner ate 14 hot dogs in 3-1/2 minutes. I lived near Coney Island and would have been interested in participating although I don’t particularly like hot dogs if there were pizza eating contests that the hot dog contest could have prepared me for.
Competitive eating took off as a sport in 2001 when Kobayashi shattered the previous world record of eating 25 hot dogs in 12 minutes by eating 50, almost twice as many as the second-place finisher. Today, there are professional eating contests all over North America, and they include contests in hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, chicken, pies, pancakes, and asparagus. Yes, asparagus. Current eating champion Joey Chestnut holds world records for asparagus, pork ribs, steak, hot dogs, matzoh balls, bratwurst, and hard-boiled eggs.
There are so many contests that there are organizations like All Pro Eating and the International Federation of Competitive Eating with rules on cleanliness, dunking and vomiting.
I can’t eat nearly as much as I used to, but I still periodically buy large pizzas and finish them while walking home. I also periodically buy a package of chocolate chip cookies and yes they are all in my stomach before I reach my front door.
In the early 1980s, I worked for Armand’s Pizzeria in Washington, D.C., as a cashier for several months. I told a few colleagues that I could easily eat a whole large Chicago-style deep-dish pizza by myself. No one believed me. After my last day of work, I proved it. I ate TWO while ex-colleagues watched. My recollection is that I had an all-you-can-eat salad bar while I waited for the pizzas to be ready.
The major obstacle to my winning competitive eating contests in the 1980s was the fact that I enjoyed food too much to stuff my face with one pizza or treat after another. Kobayashi and Chestnut stuff hot dog after hot dog into their mouths while washing them down with water. It doesn’t appear that they are savoring the food. Consequently, they are probably much faster eaters than I was in my prime. On the other hand, the competition was weaker so I might have had a chance.
The July 4 weekend was a great treat for sports fans. Argentina, Brazil, Germany, and the Netherlands won World Cup quarterfinal soccer games. Novak Djokovic and Petra Kvitova won the 2014 men’s and women’s Wimbledon tennis titles. The Tour de France bicycling contest began. Basketball fans all over the USA regularly checked the news in anticipation to find out where free agents LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, and dozens of other players were considering playing next season.
To me, though, the July 4 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest was the big show because it made me wistful about what could have been if I had applied myself to the sport of competitive eating as a young man.
|