Todd Korol/Toronto Star via Getty Images
Tracking the hot dog consumption of Blue Jays fans is the only MLB stat I care about.
Baseball is a sport steeped in rich traditional and statistical intricacy. However, there’s only one stat I’m paying attention to now for the rest of the MLB season.
Blue Jays fans coming out hot early in Loonie Dog sked, again establishing a new single-game record, a few hundredths short of the DPF high. pic.twitter.com/gsyzaJP9AP
— Shi Davidi (@ShiDavidi) May 17, 2023
The Jays might be 6.5 back in the AL East, but they’re WAY ahead in hot dog consumption. “Loonie Dogs Night” is an incredible Toronto tradition that allows fans to purchase hot dogs for one loonie, which is a single Canadian dollar. Why do they call them Loonies? I don’t really know. Why does Canada put milk in bags? I don’t know that either. I do know that $1 hot dogs rock, and I’m STUNNED averages have been this low in the past.
I understand there is some inherent hot dog bias in the world. Some people are just too fancy for the promise of tubed mystery meat sliding down their gullets to accept hot dogs at any price, even a single loonie. Still, if I’m going to a game with $1 dogs I’m housing at least four of those bad boys and regretting my decisions later.
In any event, Jays fans are doing their part to demolish dogs. Sitting it the 1.7-1.8 range per fan is a really great effort. If we do some rounding and assume there are approximately 32,000 fans at a home game you have to think at least a solid 5-7K aren’t eating hot dogs out of bias. This pushes the dog quota to over 2.0 per fan, which likely includes children and the elderly, both of whom either haven’t reached their eating peak, or remember is as a wistful memory. This could easily mean that the average adult in their eating peak is dropping 3-4, but this number could (and should) be much higher.
The next Loonie Dogs day is on May 30, and I am appealing to the good people of Toronto to go big. Go massive. If you’re planning to go to the game I want to see y’all distend your stomachs with gallons of water like Joey Chestnut in preparation and absolutely obliterate the record.
This is your moment, Toronto. Time to eat some dogs.
