Arizona Public Radio | Your Source for NPR News
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Batter Up: Baseball Just Got Its Most Decorated Corn Dog

Inside the kitchen of the Arizona Diamondbacks, chef Michael Snoke has created a monster: 18 inches of meat that's skewered, wrapped in cornbread, stuffed with bacon and infused with cheddar cheese and jalapeños.

All that rests on a bed of fries. And for $25, it's all yours.

"I have created the D-Bat," he says.

The Diamondback's executive chef has wanted to get in on the culinary competition that's sprung up between Major League Baseball teams.

Last season, the Texas Rangers set a new precedent when the Rangers Ballpark introduced the Boomstick, a two-foot, $26 hot dog dubbed baseball's largest.

But Snoke says his bat-shaped masterpiece is superior for a very simple reason: "Well, it's a corn dog, man," he says. "Everyone loves a corn dog."

The first person to taste the D-Bat outside of the team's inner circle was Arizona Republic sports writer Bob McManaman, who got a sneak peak at Chase Field. And just like that, the corn dog was gone, already making its way toward his belly.

"It's going down pretty good," he tells us. "So far, no burps, and I feel honored."

As for the French fries, McManaman says he'll pass. "I'm not going to touch the fries because there's no way I'm gonna get those down," he says.

I'll be honest, I did feel left out. The dog's inventor says it's supposed to be shared, but there's something unsettling about asking another journalist for a bite of his corndog.

Anyway, McManaman is having eater's remorse. "I'll probably have to see a doctor tomorrow," he says.

Snoke didn't bother checking the nutritional value of his corn dog. If you've gotta ask, he says, you probably shouldn't eat it. But come on, you're dying to know just how much calories McManaman racked up just now.

To do that, we turned to nutritionist Simin Levinson who's got this mean little tool on her computer. Type in a food, and out comes all its dirty little secrets.

"Perhaps not surprising, there is not an 18-inch corn dog currently in existence," she says.

But the traditional 6-inch corn dog does exist in the database. Type it in, multiply by three and you get a whopping 832 calories.

Add a few slices of bacon (yum!), 3 ounces of cheddar (alright, triple yum!), three servings of French fries and voilà! Roughly 3,000 calories and about two days' worth of sodium in one package.

Regardless, Levinson says fans will eat it up.

"Hopefully they have a pocket full of statins and a defibrillator nearby so that in case they do go into cardiac arrest, help will be an arm's length away," she says.

For his part, the creator of the D-Bat says it's supposed to be fun. And he says if you want healthy, order a salad.

Copyright 2014 KJZZ