On July 4 on national TV, Patrick Bertoletti ate 49 hot dogs and honored the memory of NSU great Joe Delaney.
Wearing a white headband with "Joe Delaney" written on it, and also sporting a big Mohawk haircut, Bertoletti won third place in the July 4 Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs eating contest televised live nationally on ESPN from Coney Island.
All the attention was on the epic battle for the win between American Joey Chestnut (66 dogs in 12 minutes) and six-time champ Takeru Kobayashi, but once administrative assistant Ronnie Pellegrin and her hubby Dr. Charles spotted Bertoletti and called me, I kept pining for shots of the third place diner.
Bertoletti, of Chicago, may be a Kansas City Chiefs fan. I tried to find out Thursday, but the public relations firm handling the Nathan's contest was too swarmed with media dealing with the top two showdown that I haven't heard anything yet.
So I can only surmise that like so many other Americans, he wanted to pay his respects to Joe Delaney, and had a national stage.
The 21-year-old, just 180-pounder is a competitive eater (you can Google him!) who has corned beef, pizza, chocolate, ice cream, jalopenos, Shoo-Fly Pie and whole turkey to his credit just last year alone. That's according to his official profile on the International Federation of Competitive Eating.
Bertoletti's slogan, according to the website, is "I believe children are our future." Considering Joe D. tried to save three drowning kids in 1983, and helped one to survive before he and the two other boys perished, I guess maybe Bertoletti doesn't have to be a Chiefs fan to want to honor a true American (and Demons) hero on one of our nation's most patriotic days.
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