He Is Our Whale

Looks like somebody’s writing a novel — Anthony Ramirez in today’s Times on the Nathan’s Famous hot dog-eating contest qualifying rounds:

Call them Ishmael.

In a pursuit not at all reminiscent of “Moby-Dick,” a group of competitors gathered yesterday to hunt and subdue the ferocious unseen eating machine known as Takeru Kobayashi of Japan.

Mr. Kobayashi, 5-foot-7 and 131 pounds, is ferocious because he has defeated rivals many times his weight.

He is an eating machine because he has won Nathan’s Famous hot-dog contest four years in a row. Last year, he ate a record 53½ frankfurters, buns and all, in the required 12 minutes, or roughly one every 13 seconds.

And he was unseen because yesterday was not the Fourth of July and Pier 17 at South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan was not Coney Island.

The contest, held in the shadow of a tall ship at high noon, was one of several regional qualifying rounds leading to the final July Fourth showdown at Nathan’s. As the reigning champion, Mr. Kobayashi didn’t have to be there.

Still, the news media converged, the curious stopped to watch and George Shea, the master of ceremonies, summoned up all the gravitas that can attach to a man wearing a straw hat.

To the beat of Eminem’s “8 Mile,” Mr. Shea declared: “They say that competitive eating is the battleground upon which God and Lucifer waged war for men’s souls, ladies and gentlemen. And they are right!” Mr. Shea is co-founder of the International Federation of Competitive Eating, which oversees the Nathan’s contest.

. . .

Among the 14 men and 2 women, the favorite was Eric Booker, 36, a subway conductor on the No. 7 line. At 6-foot-5 and 420 pounds, a Nathan’s T-shirt straining at his Henry VIII girth, Mr. Booker looked every inch the nine-year veteran of the competitive-eating circuit.

. . .

Mr. Booker won. Chewing like a gerbil, if a gerbil wore a backward baseball cap, his cheeks distended like those of Dizzy Gillespie, Mr. Booker ate 22½ franks.

The number was less than half of Mr. Kobayashi’s record. Will Mr. Booker be ready for the Big Show?

Yes, Mr. Booker said, observing that he had recently eaten 41 Nathan’s franks, though not in competition. And, he acknowledged, “they were the supermarket kind,” easier to find than the Coney Island kind but skinnier.

Still, Captain Ahab-like, Mr. Booker said about Mr. Kobayashi, “I’m not going to stop until I get him.”