The Sinatra Of Franks

THE LOS ANGELES DODGERS thought they had a very good idea this season—the All-You-Can-Eat Pavilion in rightfield. For $35, patrons got a seat and all the hot dogs, popcorn, peanuts, nachos, water and soda they could pound. But the Dodgers didn't figure on one little problem: Joey Chestnut.

Joey (Jaws) Chestnut is the most devastating eating machine in history. He eats as if he's on his way to the electric chair. He eats the way Paris Hilton shops.

He took the world hot dog eating title from Japanese legend Takeru Kobayashi on July 4 by inhaling 66 of Nathan's Famous in 12 minutes. He owns 16 U.S. and world eating records, including ones for ribs, waffles and even the dreaded deep-fried asparagus. The man has cleaned more plates than Kitchen Aid.

So when I bought him a ticket for one of the Dodgers' eat seats on Sunday, I rubbed my hands with glee, thinking, This will be as one-sided as a hanging! This monster will break the Dodgers! Are you kidding? He once ate 118 jalape�o poppers in 10 minutes! Drinks a gallon of milk in 41 seconds! Vendors will weep just to see him coming!

You ask, "How good is he?" Once, in a chicken-wing eating contest, a judge refused to count Joey's discarded wings because he'd left too much meat on them. So Joey started eating the wings, bones and all. And won.

Of course, if you meet Chestnut, a part-time engineering student at San Jose State, he looks more like a Joey than a Jaws. In the hotel lobby I walked by him twice. Only 23, he's surprisingly skinny, about 6' 1" and looks as if he might start shaving any day now. Sort of like Baby Face Nelson with a fork.

The problem was, he didn't look the least bit hungry. Turns out he'd eaten 19 pounds of grits the day before in a Louisiana contest. "I found out I really don't like grits," he said. "It's like eating wet sand."

Still, a column idea is a column idea, and off we went to Chavez Ravenous. But as soon as we walked into the All-You-Can-Eat Pavilion, our surprise element was toast. Somebody recognized Joey and told superiors, so that when Joey bellied up to the counter, a lady shoved 20 10-inch dogs forward and said, "The pavilion record is 20."

He destroyed the first 10 in a Sunday-stroll 14 minutes, and that included stops for the national anthem and for picture-taking fans. I was watching Picasso paint. "Thanks for bringing the record back to America!" said a beaming man from Beverly Hills named Kevin Risor. "It belongs here!" After all, an American doesn't hold the gyoza record. (Oops. Joey does—212 in 10 minutes.)

The next 10 dogs, though, did not go gentle into that good gullet. Joey kept squirming in his seat, poking his left side, stretching to and fro. "It's kind of like when a woman's pregnant," he groaned. "Things stick out. You can't get comfortable." Despite the fact that Chestnut has ralphed only once in an eating contest (crab cakes), I asked the woman sitting in front of us if she was worried. "No," she reasoned, "because I know if he barfs, they don't count."