Talking baseball: Vol. 1
Let's talk about some baseball. The starting pitching issue in baseball, hot dogs, the Yankees, the Pirates and more!
A couple of weeks I said I wanted to write about more baseball this season, so that is what we are going to do. Once a week we are going to check in on some baseball happenings around the league and my own adventures. Today we are going to talk hot dogs, starting pitchers, the Yankees looking like the Yankees again and the Pittsburgh Pirates!
Before we get into the actual baseball, let’s talk about some hot dogs. Specifically, the Renegade Hot Dog being served at PNC Park.
By now you have almost certainly seen the pictures. It is a footlong hot dog piled high with pierogi, onions, roast beef and pickles. It is apparently a limited time food option available through the All-Star break and, honestly, my curiosity got the best of me and I had to try it. Especially after seeing some of the … let’s say … less-than-flattering photos that were circulating from opening day. Reality did not seem to match expectations for some folks and I just had to see what was going on here.
My first trip to PNC Park this season was Sunday’s game against the Baltimore Orioles, and my first stop was going to be to try this culinary monstrosity. There was just one problem — I couldn’t find the damn thing. The Pirates advertised it as being available “near section 133,” and given that there was a literal hot dog stand there I figured that was the place to go. But it did not exist on the menu board, the vendors said they did not have it, and fans just seemed generally confused. I had heard reports from fans that Saturday’s game had “sold out” out of them by the end of the first inning.
This was a disappointment.
My next attempt came on Monday night, where I again ran into the same problem at section 133 — there was no Renegade Hot Dog. I was starting to believe this thing just did not exist, or that perhaps opening day reviews were so negative that they just scrapped the whole thing. Or at least put it on hold until they could fix it. After doing some exploring I encountered a gentlemen that was in possession of the elusive hot dog and asked him where he purchased it. He pointed me down behind home plate and said “just look for the long line.”
And we were off!
As it turns out the hot dogs are available behind section 117, which is most definitely not near section 133, nor is it even on the same level of the stadium. Finally, I got it.
I want to preface this review by saying I am not really a hot dog fan. At all. Over the past 15 years I have eaten exactly two hot dogs prior to this, and both involved alcohol. One of them was at Wrigley Field and was the result of me not eating lunch on a hot day before drinking several beers. I just needed food, and that was the closest food option available. I drowned it in more mustard than a human being should consume in one sitting. The other was at Rudy’s in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City, and that was the result of the hot dog coming free with the beer. It is just not a food that I particularly enjoy. To each their own.
But I will say this — I did not hate this.
The hot dog itself was pretty good. Cooked well, nice bite to it, decent flavor. It was good.
The pierogi’s and onions were fine. Nothing special. Probably a frozen Mrs. T’s pierogi, but you can do worse.
The pickles were crisp.
The only thing that I did not particularly enjoy was the roast beef, mainly because it was painfully dry. The type of dry roast beef where your jaw gets sore from chewing on it. The type of dry roast beef that you need to douse in gravy just to be able to eat it.
I will also say this thing was absolutely LOADED with pierogi and pickles. They did not take any shortcuts, which was, again, a pleasant change from what we were seeing from people on opening day where the hot dogs seemed to have just one or two pierogi and only a couple of pickles. There were six pierogi and six pickles.
Overall grade is probably a 5.5 or maybe a six out of 10. Not something I would get again, but a fun thing to at least try one time.
Now, let’s get into some baseball.
1. Everything about starting pitching has changed in baseball, and I’m not sure how it ever goes back to the way it was.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Adam's Sports Stuff to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.