Creator of popular Dodger Dog
Thomas Arthur, whose idea to sell a foot-long hot dog to baseball fans led to the creation of the iconic Dodger Dog, died of a heart attack June 8 in St. Louis. He was 84.
Mr. Arthur ran the food concessions at Dodger Stadium for 29 years, beginning when the venue opened in 1962. When the stadium was full, his stands could sell as many as 50,000 extra-long frankfurters a night.
Items such as sushi and sandwiches came and went during his years as the Los Angeles Dodgers' sole purveyor of fan food; in a bout of health consciousness, he even introduced a soy dog. But the meaty Dodger Dog was the centerpiece of the stadium menu that Mr. Arthur believed meant basically four things: soda, peanuts, beer and the super-size hot dog in a super-size bun.
"We look for the guy who makes up his mind on the way to the park that he's going to have a hot dog," Mr. Arthur once said, explaining his conservative approach.
When the Dodgers came to Los Angeles in 1958, they played in Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where food concessions were operated by Mr. Arthur's company, Arthur Food Services. Four years later, when the team moved to Dodger Stadium, Mr. Arthur wanted to add excitement to the menu. He thought back to his Coney Island childhood when he relished eating Nathan's foot-long hot dogs and decided to borrow the idea.
"He called it the foot-long dog, but it was actually only 10 inches," recalled Steve Arthur, one of four children who survive the former ballpark food supplier, along with 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. "He got a few snide comments from people that it was really not a foot long. That's when he got the idea to call it a Dodger Dog."
It was manufactured by the Morrell meat company and later by Farmer John, one of the Dodgers' chief sponsors. Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully promoted the "Eastern grown, Western flavored" wieners during games.
Mr. Arthur was born in Los Angeles but grew up in New York. His father owned theaters in the Midwest and East, including, briefly, the Roxy in New York.
Mr. Arthur graduated from Principia College in Illinois before enlisting in the Army Air Corps in 1942. He became a B-24 navigator and flew 50 missions over North Africa and Europe.
He dreamed of becoming a cartoonist or illustrator and after the war returned to Los Angeles, where he studied briefly at Art Center College of Design and the University of Southern California School of Architecture. To make a living, he started supplying vending machines to theaters and aircraft plants. With a family to support, Mr. Arthur gave up on art and concentrated on business.
In 1955 he won his first contract with a sports venue, the Coliseum, which he served until 1976. He also had concessions at the Los Angeles Sports Arena and Wrigley Field in Chicago. In the early 1960s, he also owned the Grenadier, a restaurant on the Sunset Strip, where he put his key stadium staff to work when baseball was not in season. He sold it after a few years.
Mr. Arthur had his longest run at Dodger Stadium, where he supplied food not only to fans in the bleachers but also to well-heeled fans in the more elite Stadium Club. He also drew the sketches and other artwork for the menus.
By 1990, however, Mr. Arthur's hot-dog-centric recipe for success was under siege. Other stadiums had diversified their menus, and Dodger management believed fans wanted new food choices, too. But updating the menu meant costly upgrades in equipment, which Mr. Arthur could not afford. He retired from the business, and in 1991 a large food-service corporation became Dodger Stadium's concessionaire.
Peter O'Malley, whose family owned the Dodgers for 40 years, said he has no doubt that Mr. Arthur's inspiration — the Dodger Dog — is the reason why Dodger Stadium for years has topped the charts in at least one category: the number of hot dogs eaten annually at major-league ballparks.
In 2005, it was No. 1 with nearly 1.7 million hot dogs consumed, according to the latest figures compiled by the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council.