EXTRA: Hot dog varieties more memorable than ballplayer careers?

The one-time proprietor of Hot Doug’s is continuing his trend of crafting varieties of sausages for sale at Wrigley Field, and marketing them by naming them after 1970s-era Chicago Cubs ballplayers.

Not that the Cubs were all that great during that decade. They contended for a few months in 1977, but otherwise usually fought it out for “bragging rights” with the White Sox for which team would play worse.

BUT FOR THOSE people now approaching or just surpassing 50, these were the Cubs of childhood yore. Ernie Banks was gone, and Ryne Sandberg hadn’t come along yet.

The new varieties pay tribute to one-time pitcher Bill Bonham (an atomic pork sausage with cherry marmalade and smoked gouda cheese), Pete LaCock (rib-eye steak sausage with horseradish cream and blue cheese) and Champ Summers (Polish sausage with Goose Island beer mustard and fried onions).

Which makes me think that the hot dogs will be more memorable than the quality of play any of those people showed while wearing the baby blue of the Chicago Cubs.

Unless you get excited over the fact that one-time first baseman LaCock was the son of Hollywood Squares host Peter Marshall, or that he hit his only grand-slam home run off St. Louis Cardinals star pitcher Bob Gibson?

PERSONALY, I FELT compelled to write this mini-commentary because it gave me the chance to wade through old baseball card images from my own childhood. Nothing else.

Because at $9 per hot dog, I don’t feel compelled to rush out to Wrigley to try one. It must be a Cubs-fan thing.

Because I don’t think any White Sox fan would feel compelled to make a trip to U.S. Cellular Field if there were overpriced hot dogs named for Jorge Orta, Harry Chappas or Francisco Barrios.

 

Even though the Sout' Side brand of baseball was just as intriguing during that decade.

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