By Carl Crawford
For my tenth birthday, my grandfather got me the Ken Burns documentary, Baseball. I do not know why my grandfather decided that a Ken Burns documentary was an appropriate gift for a child; I assume it was something he thought he might find of use during his infrequent visits to Vermont, where I was raised.
Despite the awkwardness of getting a DVD box set as an elementary schooler, I loved it. I loved the stories, the legends, the fables of players spun throughout. I loved the many Burns idiosyncrasies that I was introduced to throughout its 10-part run: the slow zooms from people of interest; the pans from one subject to another inside a photo; the constant narration from different, often recognizable voices. It introduced me to a love and lore of the game that was so much richer than I could have ever imagined, showing me how a Civil War sideshow grew into a global phenomenon.
For all the reverence and glory he puts upon America’s pastime, Burns could never have predicted the way things would change in the years following Baseball’s 1994 release. Burns's focus remains solely on the game within the lines, with all the various digressions still stemming from and ultimately returning to America’s pastime. But I don’t think Burns's heavy-handed story of a persevering sport could have found any narrative room for discussion of my favorite excuse for a ballgame: Hot Dog Hysteria.
Hot Dog Hysteria is a promotional night at Centennial Field in Burlington, Vermont, when you can buy one hot dog for 25 cents. Centennial is home to the state’s one and only baseball team, the Vermont Lake Monsters. For many years the Lake Monsters were a single-A minor league affiliate for a rotating cast of Major League Baseball teams such as the Oakland Athletics and Boston Red Sox.
However, following some reorganization of the league in 2020, the Monsters lost their affiliation. They have since become a collegiate summer baseball team, playing other teams of similar happenstance throughout the region.