Concessions

When most people go to sporting event the big game is not the only thing on their minds. Most people love food, and for some reason, sporting event tend to go hand in hand with eating. While the athletes that are being viewed are burning hundred of calories, the spectators are generally the direct opposite.

Ever major league sporting team sells concessions, with beer being their main staple. Each arena or stadium may vary on what they sell, but its mostly the same; chicken fingers, hamburgers, nachos, pretzels, popcorn, ice cream, etc. But for some reason MLB and its fans prefer more novelty concessions. By novelty concessions are mean; hot dogs, cracker jacks, soft serve ice cream (not dip and dots) peanuts and cotton candy. Why does baseball hold on to novelty concession, when most other sports have moved to more modern ones? I can only speculate....

To me the fans concession consumption mirrors the progressive feel of the respective leagues. All four of the major sporting leagues in American have obviously progressed, but baseball still has an olde time feeling to it. Sure there are now amazing athletes who play the game, and the amounts of stats kept in today's game are outragous. But baseball today is still tainted with steriod scandles and bloated contracts. I believe most people would wish that baseball would revert back to the older days, when baseball was truly America's past time. To me this is the reason why items like cracker jacks are still so popular at baseball games today.

The cracker jack tradition has been passed on from generation to generation, back when your fathers' father was probably eating them as a young boy while taking in a Sunday double header for a nickle. It also doesn't hurt that the name is embedded into the "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" song.