Glizzy goblins invade Camden Yards, devouring 9 hot dogs and 9 beers in 9 innings

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It was the top of the sixth inning, which meant that Casey Jarvis, dressed in a hot dog costume while sitting along the first-base line at Camden Yards, unwrapped his sixth hot dog and washed it down with his sixth Miller Lite.

“Hot dog! Hot dog!” Jarvis yelled. He had mustard residue on his chin, courtesy of the mustard shot he had just taken — squirting it from a bottle into his mouth, and obviously missing. “Top of the inning, crack a beer and eat a hot dog. One beer, one inning at a time.”

Those are the rules. And Jarvis sure knows them.

For the second straight season, this hot dog man ran a glizzy operation at Camden Yards, perfectly executing the 9-9-9 challenge. The instructions have gained fame around Major League Baseball ballparks. There are nine innings in a baseball game. Each inning, the participant must eat one hot dog and drink one beer.

Jarvis, a 33-year-old who has lived in Baltimore for 11 years, found a way to mass produce this hot dog challenge. Because to Jarvis, hot dogs aren’t a game; they are a livelihood. A fun livelihood, for sure, but still his way of making a living.

Jarvis runs Glizzys Wagyu Dogs, a mobile hot dog cart in Baltimore. On Fridays, he’s outside the ReLeaf marijuana dispensary. He does weddings and office parties and concerts at Ottobar. He also runs the kitchen at No Land Beyond, a board game bar in Station North.

“I’m everywhere,” he said.

On Wednesday night, Jarvis was at Camden Yards, running a large 9-9-9 challenge.

There were 50 people in this group at the Orioles game watching Baltimore beat the Cleveland Guardians. But they were also enjoying Sept. 9 in a unique way — undertaking the 9-9-9 challenge on 9/9.

“Fun as hell, man,” Jarvis said between bites of his sixth hot dog. “It’s the funniest thing ever. It’s been a chaotic day for me getting it all ready. I started advertising for it in, I don’t know, May, April? I bought the tickets in March. I just bought 50 tickets. I spent over $1,000 on tickets, and as a small business — and I’m not really a business-savvy guy — I’m like, ‘Yeah, sure, let’s have fun.’ I bought them and thought, ‘Yeah, we’ll probably sell them.’ And we did. We sold out, which is great.”

This is the amazing part. Last year, the first time Jarvis orchestrated this event, he sold about 30 tickets and brought in 350 hot dogs to the game. This year, with 50 tickets sold, he and his crew brought in nearly 600 hot dogs.

Six hundred! All wrapped in tin foil, stuffed together neatly in clear gallon-sized Ziploc bags.

“Totally legal,” Jarvis assured, and he’s correct. Fans can bring in food to Orioles games so long as it’s stored in a clear bag.

The work started early. As ticket holders walked into The Birdhouse Bar outside Camden Yards, he called over to them. Jarvis was busy cooking all of these hot dogs fresh. He needed some help assembling them all.

“That’s my new high DPH: dogs per hour,” Jarvis said. “Cooked them all, and then we had an assembly line from cook to bun to aluminum foil to bag. Whenever they showed up, I told them, ‘Put on some gloves, baby!’ This is small business. I need as many hands as I can get. It’s all-inclusive. It’s an inclusive ticket — you have to work, too.”

Jarvis spread the word through Instagram. Followers interested in a ticket requested one through a form, and if they wanted a bag of hot dogs, that was $20 — enough to cover the cost of that meat.

While Jarvis and his friends can bring in their hot dogs, they have to buy the beer at the park. That’s no small price, either.

“It’s a bit of an endeavor,” Jarvis said. “Trust me, I’m not making money off of this. This is strictly for fun. But it’s a good time, I make new friends, it’s good for the brand and it’s a beautiful night here in Oriole Park.”

By this point on Wednesday evening, the work was done. Jarvis could enjoy himself. He wound up on the video board later, hot dog in one hand — was that number eight? — and a beer in the other.

Was there any special training he went through before putting away these dogs?

“No,” Jarvis said. “My general lifestyle.”

After all, Jarvis and Co. did this last year, too. At the inaugural 9-9-9 group challenge, Jarvis put away more than his share of hot dogs. That’s why he almost choked when this reporter asked, in the sixth inning Wednesday, if he was confident he could really finish nine hot dogs and nine beers before the end of the game.

“I’ve accidentally eaten nine hot dogs and drank nine beers before,” Jarvis said. “Last year, I had a beer and hot dog to prime the pump, and last year, I think I had 10 dogs or 11 dogs and 12, 13 beers. So, nobody’s obligated to do the 9-9. If you want to go above and beyond, great. But it’s all fun.”

And fun, surely, is what he had.

“I won’t need to drink any beers or eat any hot dogs for the next month,” Jarvis noted. But he’ll still be cooking them up at his hot dog stand all around Baltimore.