À propos of the adjacent post on 2025-26 MLB concession menus… A quick look at traditional ball-yard foods that are either completely missing from this year’s menus, or at least under-represented…
Classic Crackerjack: Sailor Jack and his dog Bingo.
Gone… like tears in a mid-season rainout…
Maybe some of these classics were still on the menu but passed over for comment because there was so much new stuff to headline. Or – as it appears to this observer-from-afar – simply missing without explanation…
Pressure to upgrade…
There’s been tremendous pressure from critics of ballpark food and fans over the past several sea-sons for concessionaires to update and upscale their offerings. It’s almost become a competition – both between teams and their participating food purveyors – to see who can best-represent their cities’ and teams traditions and cultural realities.
As a result, some of each home team’s most prominent hometown celebrity chefs have teamed with their clubs to present absolutely top-level fare worthy of the top-level prices they’ve been charging for about the past decade.
Pressure to offer value…
The upward pressure on menus is complemented in almost all venues by much-hyped efforts to offer ‘Value’ selections aimed at family groups and folks at the lower end of the ticket-buying ladder who are attending games on limited budgets.
That’s a commendable, and smart, move by concessionaires who don’t want to leave any potential customers our of their end-of-the-day revenue pool. And in offering value items, they also avoid further criticism over their to-end dishes, which are pushing the upper limit of even well-off game attendees price tolerance this year.
But where are the classics?
I’m talking about standard Hot Dogs – the single most legendary ballpark standard of all tie. Burgers are a must where Dogs are offered. The two go together like a horse-and-carriage, or love and mar-riage.
What about Nachos? Not he ‘loaded’, international-themed ones still making a token showing at most MLB parks? Speaking of which… plain fries, with basic condiments such as ketchup, mustard or mayo for dipping?
I know there are folks out there just waiting to pounce on me for mentioning traditional peanuts (see photo, top of page). In a paradoxical turn of events, the past few years have brought an unprece-dented flood of complaints from folks with peanut allergies about selling the legumes in public places. While, at the same time, science has published a record number of groundbreaking studies about new ways to de-sensitize sufferers, thus making it safer for them to eat in public.
And what about universal snack foods such as potato and corn chips? Cheese puffs and pretzels? And iconic popcorn – particularly the legendary caramel corn – Crackerjack – known to every ball fan from baseballs’ unofficial anthem: Take Me Out To The Ball Game?
My take
I’ve looked for all the above at official MLB team concession menu and venue-sponsored websites. To no avail. Are they still available but considered too blah to bother mentioning? Or have they disap-peared from the parks altogether? Perhaps never to return – at least in their former original classic formats?
It seems a small thing, when we consider what a major production ballpark food has become in the past few yeas. But old-school fans like me are mourning the unexplained absence of their conces-sion favourites – the ballpark staples that made a game a game for us in bygone days.
I can’t help but paraphrase the dying words of Blade Runner‘s core villain, ‘replicant’ Roy Batty, when he tries to describe to mere human Rick Dekkert that death is as cataclysmic and emotional an event for a him as it is for any human: “All these things will be gone… like tears in a mid-season rainout…”
~ Maggie J.