A 1937 Pittsburgh Post Gazette article is available about a 7 foot 9 inch Korean priest challenging Robert Wadlow to an eating contest. Wadlow was 8 foot 6 inches at the time of the challenge and died three years later after he grew an additional five inches. Wadlow declined the challenge.

SILive.com has a report on the retirement ceremony for “Krazy” Kevin Lipsitz held before the cannoli eating contest. A video of the ceremony is available on youtube.

The following statement appeared in the Wall Street Journal’s obituary (full version) for Eddie “Bozo” Miller earlier this year:

George Shea, chairman of the International Federation of Competitive Eating, says the organization will have a moment of silence to honor Mr. Miller at its Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island this July 4.

We will see if that is followed through with on Friday.

“Footlong”, a documentary about the impact of hot dogs on American culture, can be viewed on revver.com. There are two segments about the 1998 Nathan’s hot dog contest in which Hirofumi Nakajima defended his title by beating Ed Krachie: Segment #1, Segment #2 The second segment ends with a prediction that one day the 30 HDB mark will be broken.

(Via Gazizza.net) Babe Ruth was not the only New York Yankee outfielder of the 1910s/1920s famed for his appetite. According to baseball-reference.com:

1919 - One of the most bizarre off-the-field incidents history takes place in Jacksonville, Florida. New York Yankees outfielder Ping Bodie competes against an ostrich named “Percy” in a spaghetti-eating contest! Bodie wins the competition when Percy passes out after his 11th plate of pasta.

Some accounts have “Percy” dying after the contest.

• 2002 - Steve Rushin article about Thanksgiving contest at Mickey Mantle’s restaurant
  
• 2002 - Letter from George “Garbage Gut” Glum
• 2002 - Competitive Eating: Sport? Not a sport?
• 1999 - Steve Rushin goes roller coaster riding with 1997/8 Nathan’s champ Hirofumi Nakajima after an eating contest (Will he sue the producers of “Hurl” for copying his concept?)
• 1998 - Rick Reilly column about Hirofumi Nakajima

I will try to make another post about pre 1998 competitive eating articles if I can find any.

In 1911, The New York Times had an article about Charles Glidden’s claim that he could eat 15 pounds of turkey and more. The full article follows after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Beautiful” Brian has a commentary about his recent television show that focuses on the career of Ed Krachie and includes some behind the scenes information about the pre-Kobayashi IFOCE.

The first episode of “Beautiful” Brian’s video podcast of 2008 is now on line. The guests are Mike Devito, Ed Krachie and Jill Stoler. In bits & pieces, Brian says that Krachie calls Don Lerman and Rich LeFevre mediocre eaters. Don Lerman has a response to Krachie on his blog. Krachie’s 1996 record of 22 HDB ties Lerman’s mark at his last Nathan’s contest and is 12 behind LeFevre’s personal best.

Jill Stoler has her personal 2007 highlights in competitive eating on her blog which close with being interviewed by “Beautiful” Brian.

updateThe video was taken down last evening, but has been restored on a new page

(from Carey comment) InsideBayArea.com reports sad news:

Eddie “Bozo” Miller, a gustatory giant whose eating and drinking prowess landed him in the Guinness Book of Records, died Monday at his Oakland home. He was 99.

Miller had struggled with diabetes, a weakened heart and kidney failure, though his family said he died of natural causes.

Miller once ate 27 2-pound chickens in a row and drank two quarts of liquor in the same hour. Both feats earned him a listing by Guinness.

“I never really had indigestion,” he said in an Oakland Tribune story in November, his last public interview.

Miller was one of Oakland’s true characters. He was a bookie, gambler, horse player, fight manager and restaurant owner. But his legend was made at the dining table.

Washington Post article (claims Miller was 89 without explanation)
SF Chronicle obituary (age not listed)

The 1974 Guinness Book of World records claims Miller was born in 1909.
HappyHopsLand has a summary of Miller’s exploits which lists his birthday as June 11, 1909

update The Wall Street Journal has an article about Miller with a quote from George Shea:

He likewise regretted not being in his prime to take on Takeru Kobayashi, the terror of the Coney Island boardwalk who has dominated hot-dog-eating contests in recent years. “He said he would have ate him under the table,” recalls Mr. Blackman.

George Shea, chairman of the International Federation of Competitive Eating, says the organization will have a moment of silence to honor Mr. Miller at its Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island this July 4.

update #2 The San Francisco Chronicle has an article about Miller which says he could be either 89 or 99.

update #3 UPI has a short article reporting Miller was 89

Youtube has a brief clip from the 1996 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest finals in which Ed Krachie edged out Mike DeVito, 22 hot dogs to 20.

Beautiful Brian announces that the first 2008 episode of his TV show will have four guests: Jill Stoler, Mike DeVito and Ed Krachie, both Nathan’s winners from the 1990s, and someone resembling Dale Boone with long hair. If Mike Devito, the former commisioner of the IFOCE, still has connections with the management of that organization, perhaps he can provide some insight on the recent dearth of contests.

BeautifulBrian.com also 6 songs from the holiday album remixed for your listening pleasure

update the full album (10 songs) is now available.

The New York Times archive reports on a proposed eating contest from 70 years ago:

Kin Fu Ki, 32-year-old Korean Buddhist priest, who is 7 feet 9 inches tall and weighs 303 pounds, plans a trip to the United States to challenge American giants to an eating contest.

Kin Fu Ki wanted to compete against 8 ft. 5 in. Robert Wadlow. The only other article about Kin Fu Ki says he eats five times as much rice as a Japanese soldier.

The home page of IFOCE.com has a tribute to “Krazy” Kevin Lipsitz’s decade long competitive eating career.

The San Jose Mercury has a new article about 99 year old Bozo Miller, listed by Guinness at the “world’s greatest trencherman” when that book had an eating records section.

No one could eat or drink like Bozo, and he took on all comers. He once ate 27 two-pound chickens in a row. He drank two quarts of liquor in an hour, chug-a-lugging each quart separately. Both feats landed him in Guinness.

Such drinking could kill a man. But everyone Bozo knew at his age, even those who observed sensible diets and drank moderately, is dead.

Bozo - no one calls him Eddie or Miller - is the last of Oakland’s true characters. When he managed to push back from the table, he was a bookie, a gambler, a fight manager and a restaurateur.

Happy Thanksgiving. A day devoted to massive poultry consumption is an appropriate time to bring up the Chicago quail eating challenges of 1887. In the Chicago Tribune, Miss Wesley claimed that she could eat two quails a day for 30 days. Her challenge was a response to J.C Mann winning $1,000 after he bet with George R. Clark who claimed that no man could eat a quail a day for 30 days. J. C. Mann disproved Clark’s claim. No news of Ms. Wesley’s success or failure appears in subsequent editions of the Chicago Tribune.

The New York Times archives has a preview from 1906 of a spaghetti contest to be held in Little Italy which is almost certainly a parody. The eaters were to eat lengths of spaghetti ranging from 10 miles to 100 yards.

The only instance of a spaghetti contest in which the pasta was measured by length I am aware of was Donna Maiello’s 1982 record of 100 yards of spaghetti in 27.75 seconds.

Don “Moses” Lerman makes the following claims in his blog:

As I reflect upon my eating carear as I said on the about Don Lerman page on my site, I invented the water technique , the first eater to use their own nick name in a contest, before that either the promoter the press or the sponser gave an eater a nickname , I change that forever!
The first eater to go out of state for a contest,the first champion to crossover to another food category, the first non Philly resident to compete in the Wing Bowl( achieving 3rd &2ndplace).

This page about Oakland, California resident Eddie “Bozo” Miller says he ate 63 apple pies at the 1961 Montana State Fair and 30 pounds of meat loaf at an undated contest in Idaho. There are probably earlier instances of eaters traveling out of state, but I have not been able to locate them.

The writer for the trivia column on creators.com was contacted by the daughter of Bozo Miller in June, who reported he was still alive despite an age of almost 100.

NYTimes.com reports that Don Imus will take over the morning show on WABC currently hosted by Curtis Sliwa and Ron Kuby. The radio station says it hopes to find an alternate place in its schedule for Curtis Sliwa, a four time Carnegie Deli pickle eating champion in the 1990s.

Several articles about competive eating from the New York Times archive which previously required payment are now available for free (in reverse chronological order)
preview of 2005 NJ pizza contest, mentions Pat Philbin
2005 Review of Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating
Short article about Kate Stelnick (she claims to have drunk 14 glasses of water while eating the 96er)
Long 2003 profile of Carson “Collard Green” Hughes
Preview of 2003 Wing Bowl, focuses on Bill “El Wingador” Simmons and “Belly” Donna Villec
Report on the 2002 pelmeni contest
2002 preview of Nathan’s finals, mainly about the Sheas
2002 article about Don Lerman, Badlands Booker & Cookie Jarvis, calls George Shea a “competitive eater since 1988″
2001 profile of Kevin Lipsitz
Article on quick start controversy at 1999 Nathan’s finals
Report on 1999 Nathan’s finals
preview of 1999 Ben’s Deli’s matzoh ball contest
1998 article about Mike DeVito, also mentions start of the IFOCE, originally the International Federation of Hot Dog Eating
1997 interview with Ed Krachie
Report on December 1996 duel between Ed Krachie and Nakajima
1996 Nathan’s final report
1995 Nathan’s finals results
Report on 1995 Nathan’s New Jersey qualifier, contest was 10 minutes long
article on 1994 Nathan’s finals, mentions Curtis Sliwa’s participation
Report on 1990 Nathan’s, says Jay Green & Mike DeVito tied for first place
Preview of 1987 Nathan’s, registrations were still being accepted by phone on July 3
Report on 1984 women’s only pancake contest

The only instance of a pre-1972 Nathan’s hot dog eating contest I could find in the Google news archive was a June 30, 1967 competition held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the hot dog:

Champ Eats 127 Hot Dogs

NEW YORK was the 100th anniversary of the hot dog, and Walter Paul, a 400- pound truckdriver, sat down and ate 127 of them with relish, catsup and mustard. Paul, 32, was rewarded for his Ruthian took him one hour (?) a trophy proclaiming him the world’s champion hot dog eater.’ ,The “dog-in” was held at Nathan’s Famous, the Coney Island frankfurter palace. The occasion was to honor Charles Feltman, who slipped a sausage into a roll in 1867 and named the creation “frankfurter” after his birthplace in Frankfurt, Germany.

The Las Vegas Sun reports on the spectators outside the Clark County Regional Justice Center during OJ Simpson’s bail hearing last month.

Another off-Strip show, the Golden Nugget’s “Defending the Caveman,” sent over a guy in a polyester pelt with a plastic club . A guy in black, maybe with the show, maybe not, gave away doughnuts. “That’s the new Scorsese, right there!” he shouted at a cameraman. He added, in a two-minute span, “Four dead in Ohio! Four dead in Ohio!” and “Free Krispy Kremes!”

Local hot dog eating champ “Kid” Cary DeGrosa held a camera to his face and bellowed like a mastodon across a primeval swamp.

“Wait a minute, wait minute, I’ve got Elvis and the caveman!” he said. “Isn’t this great? It’s not as big as in Los Angeles, but we’re not L.A.”

NorthhamptonChron.com reports that British eater Peter Dowdeswell will honor his late wife’s request and retire from competitive eating. His final event will take place later today at the Sunnyside pub in Kingsthorpe. Dowdeswell had many eating records when Guinness discontinued their eating records section.

update In happier news about the spouse of a British competitive eater, Lisa reports that an article about living with her competitive eating husband appeared in a recent issue of “Pick Me Up” magazine. Lisa is the wife of Rob Burns, who was the British representative in the 2005 Nathan’s finals.

Scans of the eating records section from the 1988 Guinness Book of World Records are available after the jump. Eating records were dropped by Guinness around 1990.

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3

Read the rest of this entry »

“Kid” Cary DeGrosa has uploaded a segment of him eating 6 hot dogs in two minutes from a program that aired on the TLC cable channel called “Diets from Hell” to youtube. There is some footage of pre-Kobayashi Nathan’s contests.