who came up with the name hot dog
Hot dog According to a myth, the use of the complete phrase hot dog in reference to sausage was coined by the newspaper cartoonist Thomas Aloysius "Tad" Dorgan around 1900 in a cartoon recording the sale of hot dogs during a New York Giants baseball game at the Polo Grounds.[21] However, Dorgan's earliest usage of hot dog was not in reference to a baseball game at the Polo Grounds, but to a bicycle race at Madison Square Garden, in The New York Evening Journal December 12, 1906, by which time the term hot dog in reference to sausage was already in use.[21][26] In addition, no copy of the apocryphal cartoon has ever been found.[27]
Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest The contest has gained public attention in recent years due to the stardom of Takeru Kobayashi and Joey Chestnut. The defending champion is Joey Chestnut, who ate 72 hot dogs in the 2017 contest. He beat out Carmen Cincotti and the 2015 champ, Matt Stonie.