Toronto Blue Jays Fans Consume An Enormous Amount Of Hot Dogs

Major league baseball and hotdogs are synonymous, but you don't have to tell that to Toronto Blue Jays fans. They already know. They just set a single-game hot dog-guzzling record. On May 16, stadium goers collectively put away a whopping 61,111 hot dogs – a new single-game record. (Talk about teamwork.) The real kicker? Total attendance was 35,112, according to stats tweeted by baseball columnist Shi Davidi of Sportsnet. That's an estimated 1.74 dogs per fan, totally obliterating the estimated amount of hot dogs: 44,378.

This gastronomic victory came just weeks after Blue Jays fans knocked the previous record out of the water on April 25. The Toronto Blue Jays kicked off the night's feast by welcoming Joey Chestnut, the legendary hot-dog-eating champion of the world, to Rogers Centre to throw the first pitch. The official Major League Eating website lauds Chestnut as "an American hero and a national treasure," and that night, maybe he inspired a cacophony of heroic, sausage-chomping glory. Blue Jays fans ate 25,000 hot dogs within the first 20 minutes of the game alone and would break the all-time Loonie Dogs record with a total of 51,629. They went on to surpass that figure by nearly 10,000 a few weeks later.

Call it alarming, impressive, godly, or vaguely worrying – the point is, Blue Jays fans know exactly what they're doing because a Loonie Dogs Night had rolled around. Named for Canada's $1 coin, the loonie, it's a beloved Toronto tradition in which, at every Tuesday home game, hot dogs are $1. Granted, the promotion is limited to four hotdogs per ticketholder, but judging by recent dog-eating stats, it looks like Blue Jays fans are cashing in.

Both of the recent record-breaking dates happened on Loonie Dogs Nights. Last season, two spirited fans demonstrated their zeal for the occasion by showing up in hot dog costumes and scarfing down 30 franks in a seven-inning span. But, that's nothing compared to Joey Chestnut, who downed a record 76 hotdogs, with buns, in just 10 minutes at the 2021 Nathan's Famous Fourth of July contest. Indeed, kicking off Loonie Dogs season with Chestnut himself might've been a good omen for glizzy-loving Blue Jays fans, who have taken no prisoners while housing hot dogs left and right all across Rogers Centre.

It looks like Blue Jays fans are outdoing themselves in the 2023 season. In 2022, fans put away an average of 34,220 hot dogs per Loonie Dogs Night – a figure that was far outpaced on May 16. Long story short: Vendors, rev up those fryers.