Joey Chestnut, competitive eating’s GOAT, shows how it’s done in Portland
Slugger the Sea Dog celebrates after Joey Chestnut won the Maine Bean Suppah eating contest Saturday in Portland. Chestnut won the competition after eating 10 bean suppers, two more than his three competitors combined. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image
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PORTLAND — If he’s being honest, Sam Shepherd knew he didn’t have a chance. It didn’t matter. Sometimes, competition for competition’s sake is enough.
When you’re in an eating contest against Joey Chestnut, the best to ever stuff his face, competition has to be enough.
“The pressure is off the second Joey walks in,” said Shepherd, of Portland. “Nobody can do what this guy does.”
Chestnut, who reclaimed the mustard yellow belt at the annual Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest last month, eating 66 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes, was at Delta Dental Park at Hadlock Field on Saturday. Chestnut and his cast iron stomach took on three opponents — Shepherd, Alan Dill of Lincoln, and Josh Hill of Hudson, New Hampshire — in a bean supper eating contest prior to the Portland Sea Dogs (playing in their alternate Bean Suppahs uniforms) game against the Reading Fightin Phils.
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A bean supper for this competition is two red snapper hot dogs, baked beans, brown bread and a whoopie pie. Eat as many as you can in 10 minutes. Get more in your mouth than on your shirt.
The three earned the right to take on Chestnut by finishing as the top three in a whoopie pie eating contest prior to the Sea Dogs game on Aug. 1. Of the three, only Dill was an eating contest veteran. Including that whoopie pie contest a few weeks ago, Dill has titles in various contests across Maine and Canada.
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But this time, he was going up Chestnut, the Tom Brady of competitive eating. The gold standard in stopwatch gluttony.
According to his biography on the Major League Eating (yeah, that’s a thing) web page, Chestnut holds 58 eating records. The man ate 141 hard boiled eggs in 8 minutes. He ate 12 pounds, 8.75 ounces of deep fried asparagus spears in 10 minutes, so he probably also holds the record for smelliest pee.
Chestnut ate 47 grilled cheese sandwiches in 10 minutes. He ate 118 jalapeno poppers in 10 minutes. He inhaled 16 pounds of bologna is eight minutes. It’s a safe bet there are no leftovers in Chestnut’s fridge.
There’s only one thing Chestnut refuses to eat in a contest, for good reason.
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“Raw oysters are a game of numbers. Eventually you get a bad one, and it would be rough,” he said.
This summer, Chestnut has been on a tour of minor league ballparks around the country, taking on fans in a variety of gastro sprints. There was brisket nachos in Memphis, Tennessee. A giant burger in Birmingham, Alabama. In Wichita, it was chili on cinnamon rolls, a Kansas delicacy.
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“It was a weird flavor. It didn’t taste bad, but my body was like, ‘what is this?'” Chestnut said.
At Hadlock, Chestnut found the dueling textures of the bean supper components off-putting and difficult. He’s used to a contest with one thing. This was four, and with just 5 minutes, there was no time to get used to it.
Still, he’s Joey Chestnut. The best find a way. Even with a dollop of whoopie pie cream smeared across their eyebrow.
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Chestnut inhaled 10 bean suppers. The other three, working to combine for a score to beat the champ, came close. Shepherd and Hill each finished three bean suppers. Dill finished two. Final score: Chestnut 10, Maine 8.
All agreed, the beans made it harder than they expected.
“I thought (Chestnut) was going to eat more, but I thought we were going to eat more, too,” Dill said. “I didn’t anticipate the volume of beans in each tray.”
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Hill looked back at the contest with a mix of regret, and awe for Chestnut.
“Nothing I’ve ever done prepared me for this,” he said.
The question is asked, is what Chestnut does athletic? Does his ability to eat pretty much anything with ferocious speed make Chestnut an athlete?
Well, he works at it, he said. He found his thing and practices, just like an athlete would. It takes a physical toll, for sure. Chestnut and the others had to catch their breath after their 5 minute dash through a Maine Saturday night supper tradition.
“I mean, they used to debate if golfers are athletes,” Chestnut said.
Is Chestnut an athlete? For now, let’s leave that question unanswered. That’s something to chew on another time.
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Tagged: portland sea dogs, Sports Columns, travis lazarczyk
Travis Lazarczyk has covered sports for the Portland Press Herald since 2021. A Vermont native, he graduated from the University of Maine in 1995 with a BA in English. After a few years working as a sports. More by Travis Lazarczyk
