During the warmer months, when I'm not eating or thinking about what I'm going to eat next, I'm probably watching, stat tracking or anticipating some baseball game. I have four fantasy baseball teams to keep me busy this season and the only thing left to prepare for is 1. opening day, which should be a national holiday and required day off; 2. winning week one of all my fantasy leagues; 3. going to my first game with blankets, sweatshirts and cash for dogs and beer in tow; and 4. taking my second baseball roadtrip.

Regarding that last point, in 2006 I started an annual tradition to visit at least five ballparks over the course of a week (or two). Last year not surprisingly I focused on the northeast (figured I should start local). I didn't count Fenway in the roadtrip because I can go there any time, but I did get to PNC, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, RFK, shack of the Washington Nationals, Camden Yards, lovely abode of the hurting Baltimore Orioles, Citizens Bank, immaculate residence of the Philadelphia Phillies, and last but not least Shea, poor Shea, home of the New York Mets and Jose Reyes.

I have a fascination with ballparks and their concessions, so I made it a point to take note of the foods that appeared to be the fan favorites at each park. I'm well aware of the Fenway Frank. Would I find people housing Camden Corn Dogs? Or PNC Pretzels? The search was on. My criteria: It had to  be the one food I saw the most fans enjoying or the food item with most concession stands.

PNC Park's chips

This park is designed to offer a bit of everything in restaurant-like settings. You'll find footlongs, kettle corn, burgers, fries, sausages, deli sandwiches, BBQ, fried chicken, Bloomin' Onions and pizza, to name a few, at places like Federal Street Grille, Pop's Plaza (for Willie Stargell), Smorgasburgh, Manny (Sanguillen's) BBQ, Outback Outpost . . . The selection is more likely to be found at a mall than a ballpark. It took some scanning to figure out which concession seemed to win out over the others.

If I wasn't walking by a North Shore Nachos Express stand then I was watching someone scarf some loaded tortilla chips. Nachos were everywhere and you could get several different toppings piled on, from simple cheese to the chili works. I don't really know what is significant about nachos in Pittsburgh. Nacho history tells us Pittsburgh was certainly not the first U.S. region where nachos were introduced back in the 1960s. (Far from it!) I imagine Pirates fans just like their nachos.

It was my first game, so I went with the grilled dog (see picture), which ended up being the best dog of my entire trip.

RFK Stadium's fried fried

Aramark fully operates the concessions at RFK, so there's not a whole lot of deviation from your typical stadium fare and there are no fancy booth names like at PNC. You won't have to ask yourself, "Do I want a dog or do I want that Smorgasburgher?" You want a dog.

That said, I didn't think I'd find a fan favorite food in this DC ballpark -- but I did find one that was plentiful.

Oversized chicken fingers

I hadn't noticed much about the concessions until making an ATM run that took us half way around the stadium. The one thing around every turn was fried chicken. I should say they were just chicken fingers, but these were larger and more plentiful than I'd seen just about anyplace else in my life. One stand had a mound of chicken so large that it was brimming up against a clear plastic pane. Lots of poultry . . . and Crisco.

I ordered another grilled dog.

Camden Yards' pits

In addition to being fan deprived, Camden Yards was also concession challenged, making it difficult to find one fan favorite. It's not that it didn't have concession areas -- it's just that many of them were closed due to lack of demand. Sad state for such a great ballpark. Maybe if they spiced up those Orioles...

The "liveliest" area of Camden Yards (see picture) would have to be Eutaw Street (think Yawkey Way before a Red Sox game, only nicer). Eutaw Street is where you'll find brass baseballs embedded in the street where home runs landed, Hall of Fame plaques, tributes to Cal and the Baltimore-born Babe, souvenir stands and the one food that appears front and center when you enter the park.

BBQ 

Sort of like being at a big picnic, you can walk up to one of two large BBQ pits on Eutaw Street to order a burger, grilled chicken, pulled chicken, pulled pork or ribs. I was excited to shake up my usual gametime fare. The problem was the jokers running the pit. Imagine five teenagers standing around doing nothing but try to stop the paper plates from blowing away, only to tell customers that the grilled chicken won't be ready for another five minutes, which actually turned out to be 20.

While I can see the draw to BBQ in Camden, particular in the nice outdoor Eutaw Street area, we gave up on that particular pit and got a burger, chicken fingers, fries, pizza and Dots from various concession stands inside the park instead. Get hungry!

Citizens Bank Park's cheesesteak

This new park combines some design elements of Camden, with its Ashburn Alley in the outfield, with the concessionaires of PNC, sporting stands like Brewerytown, Bull's (Greg "The Bull" Luzinski's) BBQ, Fanatic Food Court and Peace a Pizza, etc. This park has even more restaurants than PNC, I think partially because it's so distant from downtown. For instance, there's the Baker Bowl Bistro (with upscale chef specials), McFadden's Restaurant and Saloon, and the High and Inside Pub.

But, seriously now, enough with all this other stuff. Only one type of food comes to mind when I think of Philly and only one type of food was on my mind before I even arrived.

Philadelphia cheesesteaks

The moment I walked in I was almost expecting to see a big sign flashing "Cheesesteaks this way!" I didn't find that. I had to study the menu at each stand to find the cheesesteaks, which were sold at places like Tony Luke's and Cobblestone Grill (not all that intuitive). Once I realized that and got a look at one of those large delicious sandwiches, robed with a shining silver wrapper, I noticed a lot more of them walking around. Then I heard people ordering several. I finally bought mine for $7.00 and parked myself at a counter overlooking the park. Shortly thereafter I was shoved aside by several big dudes with two PCSs each. I think they could have handled more.

Shea Stadium's dogs

Last but not least we have Shea. Shea has all the usual stadium fare with some only-to-be-found in New York specialties, including Sicilian pizza! I should have had a slice of that, but I beelined to the stand closest to my seat instead. (I was running late thanks to the Lincoln Tunnel.) There I found the one food item that most Mets fans were noshing.

Nathan's hot dogs

Running large, rolling grills of classic Nathan's hot dogs, the stand I ordered from was barely keeping up with the dog demand -- also accompanied by a high demand for Nathan's fries. As each dog came off the front of the grill, new ones were added to the back. In the 10 minutes I was standing there (I would get in line behind the one guy ordering for six people), the grill had to be reloaded twice -- probably six to ten dogs each time. Nearly Kobayashi-esque. My only gripe with this quick grilling was that the dogs didn't get crisp enough for my liking. I guess that's why they were so good at PNC, where everyone's too busy eating nachos.

Considering they haled from Coney Island, is there any surprise that Nathan's dogs would be a big seller at a NY stadium?

Baseball roadtrip 2 is this July, west coast style. Concession stand report to come shortly thereafter. 

Happy eating!

- Foodie Chick