We have a wiener

The great Dome Dog Controversy of 2010 is probably over. Hormel won't be supplying the hot dogs at the new stadium, but Schweigerts will, and the tube steaks will still be Made in Minnesota. Albert Lea rather than Austin.

Not that it matters to me personally; I don't eat hot dogs. I'm a bratwurst guy. Ja, ich bin ein Deutche kinder. (Well, German and Hungarian and Austrian and Luxembourg ...) Anyway, my preferred ballpark dining experience involves bratwurst and sauerkraut. My wife is fine with the brats, but the kraut, not so much. (She's not German.)

Brats are, in my experience, a Midwest ballpark thing. St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Cincinnati — Kansas City, too, although in K.C. one really ought to find one of the Gates barbecue stands.

But Detroit, no. They have Polish sausages and Italian sausages, but no brats. Yankee Stadium had pastrami sandwiches, no brats. Fenway Park — they block off Yawkey Way before the games, and the street is filled with vendors grilling what look like 15-inch Italian sausages, but no brats.

Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers has brats during spring training, but apparently not during the regular season. The year I went there (2008), I was in line at a concession stand behind a woman wearing a Red Sox hat. "What's bratwurst?" she asked the gal behind the counter, pronouncing it like it's made of misbehaving kids. "I dunno," was the response, "something from Minnesota."

I haven't read much about the brat situation in the new park. I hope they're grilled. The Metrodome's brats weren't up to the standards of the Chicago parks, and that's a travesty. We have enough Germans around here. We can do better.