American Beat: Japanese Sputnik

"The winner will get a trophy," Shea said. "With all due respect to the rally, that's not enough to draw a professional eater all the way out to South Dakota."

So it's a Catch-22: We need to make competitive eating a professional sport in order to develop a team of world-class eaters, but it can't become a professional sport because we've failed to find those very eaters.

I mean, as America's hot dog glory has faded like an ImClone stock tip, the very foundation of the sport of competitive eating has been undermined.

Much as the American Sports Establishment marginalized the globally popular World Cup because our country still doesn't dominate soccer, that same establishment has seen America fail at competitive eating and has turned away from a sport that is inarguably the purest of sporting endeavors.

Now, competitive eating is being assailed by the very arbiters who should be celebrating it. Sports Illustrated, for example, recently convened a panel of "athletes" to determine whether hot dog eating is even a "sport," as if such a distinction even mattered.

"They're gluttons, not athletes," chimed in Red Sox pitcher John Burkett. "Where's the athleticism?" added Yankee reliever Mike Stanton.