The New York Times reports:

July 2, 2010
An Eating Contest Will Be Missing a Top Eater
By MICHAEL WILSON

Say it ain’t so, Takeru!


Takeru Kobayashi

Scandal of sorts has visited that seemingly incorruptible sporting event, the annual Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot-Dog-Eating Contest — a title that is as much of a mouthful as the hot dogs the competitors wolf down.

Let’s face it: Those who enter eating contests every year are not generally prone to performance-enhancement or sex scandals. But while the forecast for Sunday is sunny, the dark cloud of controversy will hover over this year’s mound of frankfurters. Only the various creatures that contribute to a Nathan’s hot dog can see an upside to this story.

Takeru Kobayashi, the thin, grinning carnivore from Nagano, Japan, will not be competing at Coney Island on Sunday. It is the first time he will miss the contest since his shocking debut in 2001 as a 23-year-old stranger.

“Man devours record 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes to claim victory in eating contest,” the Associated Press headline screamed that year.

Is he ill? Is he full?

No.

Mr. Kobayashi is not welcome at this year’s hot-dog-eating contest because he has not signed his contract with the event’s organizers. Strange as it sounds (“contract” and “hot-dog-eating contest” in the same sentence?), it appears to be true. In the biggest news in free agency since that other guy, the basketball player, Mr. Kobayashi has refused to sign an exclusivity contract with Major League Eating, the sanctioning body of the Nathan’s event and dozens of other eating contests a year.

“The contract would have severely limited the ability to eat and eating behavior itself,” Mr. Kobayashi wrote on his blog on Friday, according to an English translation.

Nonetheless, he told Japan’s Kyodo News: “I really want to compete in the event.”

The chairman of M.L.E., George Shea, said it was common sense that the league’s contestants be forbidden from performing in events organized by its competitors. At the same time, he derided whatever eating-contest opportunities awaited Mr. Kobayashi outside of the M.L.E.

“Like, a chicken-wing contest for $1,000 in some bar,” he said.

By contrast, the Nathan’s contest, said to have taken place every year since 1916, is now presented live on ESPN. About 35,000 spectators are expected at the beach to watch it, after a two-hour pregame show. [...]

Mr. Kobayashi won for six straight years, but for the last three, he has been beaten by Joey Chestnut, an American. Mr. Chestnut shrugged off his old rival on Friday, saying — trash talk! — Mr. Kobayashi was “scared away” after Mr. Chestnut beat him in a won-ton-eating contest in Asia in May.

The morning’s serious talk about contracts gave way to a promotional circus event, literally, at Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey at Coney Island, where three men who will compete on Sunday’s had a hot-dog-bun-eating contest with three female Asian elephants. It was billed as a “fully sanctioned cross-gender, cross-species eating contest.”

The three husky humans choked down 15 dozen buns during the six-minute contest. But the elephants, shoveling in eight buns at a time with their trunks, won.

Eating contests have a long tradition in the United States. This report reminded me of the (mythical) eating contest sometime in the 1920s or '30s between Miss Violette Schumberger and Mr Joe Duffle. Appearing in Damon Runyon's third book of short stories, Take It Easy, "A Piece of Pie" was adapted for radio in 1949. The 30-minute program is a reminder of how different was entertainment just 60 years ago.