Matt Cohen noticed that Carmen Cincotti was inserted at #15 in the MLE top 50, ejecting Brian Seiken from the bottom of that list. Eric “Steakbellie” Livingston and Ben Do remain ranked despite not competing since 2014.

Brian Seiken’s removal terminates the longest ranked streak in IFOCE / MLE history, which dates from at least February 2002 according to the Internet Archive

Crazy Legs Conti now appears to have the longest ranked streak, which dates from at least October 2002. (Eric “Badlands” Booker took a hiatus in 2007, breaking his ranked streak.)

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“Famous Nathan: A Family Saga of Coney Island, the American Dream, and the Search for the Perfect Hot Dog” a book by Lloyd Handwerker, a grandson of Nathan Handwerker, the founder of Nathan’s famous was released yesterday. Lloyd Handwerker will give a talk about the book tonight at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn.

In the book, Lloyd Handwerker corroborates the claim made by Mortimer Matz in a 2010 New York Times interview that the 1916 origin story for Nathan’s is a fabrication.

(image from page 5 of the book)
update Jun 23Daily Beast has an article about the book with this paragraph about the contest:

So, what would Nathan have thought about the modern-day popularity of the hot dog eating contest? Lloyd was a bit hesitant when I asked him. “Some of the old timers are disgusted by it,” he admitted. While he wasn’t sure if his grandfather would have agreed with them, he “couldn’t deny the advertising impact on the company.” But on the other-hand “he hated waste” and each night he even inspected the garbage to see what people weren’t finishing.

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Bully The LSB posted a page from a comic book where Superman cooked and served food for an eating contest for Daily Planet employees that was to have awarded a sports car. Jimmy Olsen was one of the competitors.
updated Jun 19 A commenter noted that the page was from a 1958 Jimmy Olsen comic. Here is the cover and plot summary.

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Here are the top debut Nathan’s hot dog performances based on announced results, which is an incomplete body of information. It appears Darron Breeden’s 28 is the top performance for someone who had not previously been mentioned on eatfeats since this website was started in 2005.

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Michael Deitz noticed the MLE top 50 was updated today. Tim “Eater X” was ejected from the #4 position, ending a streak in the rankings of at least a decade. Other ejections are Scott Thomas (#35) and Marlene Wigginton (#43). New entrants are Steven Schuster (#22) Michael Dietz(#34) and Kassandra Zapata (#42).

It is interesting that Scott Thomas and Marlene Wigginton were removed when they had done competitions in the last 365 days. Eric Livingston and Ben Do have not competed since 2014.

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The ESPN3.com schedule for July 4 is now out. The men’s & women’s Nathan’s finals will be live streamed on that platform. The broadcast will be tape-delayed on ESPN at 3pm eastern due to Wimbledon coverage.

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Here are the head to head results for people with 2 or more MLE contest results over the past 365 days:

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The Village Voice has an article about Famous Nathan, a book about the history of the hot dog restaurant that will be released June 21 co-authored by Lloyd Handwerker, a grandson of the company founder. The book is a companion to the 2014 documentary by the same name and will include a debunking of the 1916 contest origin myth. Another book Nathan’s Famous: The First 100 Years of America’s Favorite Frankfurter Company by William Handwerker, who is also a grandson of the founder, was released on May 10.

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