The West Michigan Whitecaps are a class A minor league baseball team. They play their home games in Comstock Park, in a suburb of Grand Rapids. But I'm writing about them because they are clearly a team which thinks big. Really, really big.
How else to explain the new addition to the ballpark menu--a 4800, yes that's 4800, calorie burger. The monster costs twenty bucks and weighs four, count 'em four, pounds. It consists of five beef patties, five slices of cheese, nearly a cup of chili and liberal lashings of salsa and corn chips. It comes on an 8-inch bun.
Needless to say, the forces of good have attacked the monster. A group called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, based of course in Washington, has asked the team to label the burger a "dietary disaster," which increases an eater's risk of cancer and heart disease.
A team spokesman says it's a gimmick and is being promoted as unhealthy.
But I don't know, there's something very American about it. We love big--biggest car, biggest bucks, biggest...whatever. I have no idea what it would be like to try to eat one. Could you hold it in one hand, for instance? If you drop it, could it crack your knee?
Lots of misgivings. Lots of questions. But there's a small, guilty part of me that would kind of like to try one. Rare, please.
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