Take me out to the ballgame or Take me out to dinner?

[Cookie]

Mon Jul 26 01:13pm PDT

Report on stadium food finds bad conditions
By Chris Chase


If hefty price tags, long lines and marginal quality hadn't convinced you to avoid eating concessions at professional sporting events, an ESPN report might do the job.

The network recently compiled a list of 2009 health-inspection reports from every major professional sports venue (MLB, NFL, NHL and NBA) in North America and the results were startling.

Health inspectors found rodent droppings, improper hand-washing, bacterial growth, poor refrigeration, expired meat and the presence of toxic material — and those were just the “critical violations.” More than half of the vendors were cited for such violations at one-third of the venues. And at two stadiums, Tropicana Field in Tampa and the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., inspectors cited all of the vendors for critical violations.

Some of the lowlights from the report, courtesy of ESPN:

Verizon Center (Washington D.C.) — Mice droppings, a critical violation in Washington, were found at at least 10 vendors.

Great American Ballpark (Cincinnati) — Inspectors saw an employee scraping food debris from a spatula using the trash bin and then trying to continue using the same spatula without cleaning it.

St. Pete Times Forum (Tampa) — At one location with five critical violations, an inspector saw an employee handle dirty dishes and then put away clean dishes without washing his/her hands or changing gloves. The same location lacked soap at a hand sink.

Staples Center (Los Angeles) — One stand dumped 9.5 pounds of sushi after inspectors found that it had become too warm.

One could argue that if you're ordering sushi at a basketball game, you're playing with fire, but it’s reasonable for fans to expect that whatever food they're ordering at a game is safe and properly handled.

[America's best baseball stadiums]

It should be noted that each state has different inspection requirements, so an 84 percent violation rate at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa doesn't necessarily mean that the vendors there are six times as dirty as ones at Candlestick Park (13 percent). Florida had the worst overall violation rate, but that’s likely a result of tougher inspection criteria rather than a systemic statewide penchant for improperly washed sinks.

Chicago stadiums had the lowest percentage of vendors with critical violations; that could be because city inspectors make their visits when the stadiums are empty and no employee is handling or serving food. (Gotta lova that Chicago political machine.) Canada also had low violation rates for each venue.

Gillette Stadium (New England Patriots) and Nassau Coliseum (New York Islanders) fared the best; no vendor at either stadium was cited for a critical violation.

[Redwood]

Here is the ESPN article with a map showing field and stadium locations.
You can select the percentage of violations to see the best and the worst.
If you hover the mouse on a location a box will pop up with a summary report and a link you can click on to read the full reports.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/etick...iumconcessions

Terry, Safeco fared pretty well with only 16% of its vendors in violation.

The worst where you want to eat before going are:

Verizon Center, Washington DC 100% of its vendors in violation.
Jacksonville Municipal, Jacksonville Fl 77% of its vendors in violation.
Raymond James Stadium, Tampa Fl 84% of its vendors in violation.
St. Pete Times Forum, Tampa Fl 88% of its vendors in violation.
Tropicana Field, St. Pete Fl 100% of its vendors in violation.
Amway Arena, Orlando, Fl 75% of its vendors in violation.
American Airlines Arena, Miami, Fl 93% of its vendors in violation.
Sun Life Stadium, Miami, Fl 93% of its vendors in violation.

Only 11 had no violations...
But that includes the Chicago venues which were closed and empty at the time of the inspection, and the Meadowlands which is a new stadium without any inspections on record at this time.

[Cookie]

My husband and I were waiting to get a hot dog when, the young kid grilling them sneezed all over the grill. It was more than just a sneeze, too, he was really sick... everyone filtered away without one. I felt bad thinking about the next group of people coming up and buying one of those. If I can, I always try to check out the cooks or the people working behind the counters.

[Wally Hays]

Ahhhh what do you expect for $ 8.95

[hj]

Next thing is you will expect Bobby Flay to do the cooking. Many times the workers at the ballparks are high school kids using the income for fund raising. The probably get ZERO training in health issues and depend on their instincts, which can change from moment to moment, sometimes depending on the attitude of the customer.

[Wally Hays]

Hot Dogs.... Get yer Hot Dogs! would you like extra boogers with that ma'am?

[Cookie]

Ahhhh what do you expect for $ 8.95

No boogers.

[Wally Hays]

High expectations indeed

[Brandon124]

My husband and I were waiting to get a hot dog when, the young kid grilling them sneezed all over the grill. It was more than just a sneeze, too, he was really sick... everyone filtered away without one. I felt bad thinking about the next group of people coming up and buying one of those. If I can, I always try to check out the cooks or the people working behind the counters.

Wow, and here I am having faith in most people to at least turn their heads to one side of their shoulder and using their top as a handkerchief. More importantly, whenever I'm sick, I normally don't attend work. I prefer not to get others sick and be tortured with guilt. This is, without a doubt, unprofessional and makes me feel better than ever that I rarely attend live sports games. Good obvious move on you and your husband's part, Cookie.