On Thursday morning, the Philadelphia Phillies officially announced that Dollar Dog Night is dead. It’s being replaced in 2024 with buy one, get one free dog night, described like this in a press release:

“The Phillies are also announcing dates for Hatfield Phillies Franks BOGO Nights on April 2 and April 16, where fans can buy one hot dog at regular price and get the second hot dog for free at concession stands throughout the ballpark. This modification to the previous Hatfield Phillies Franks Dollar Dog Nights is based on the organization’s ongoing commitment to provide a positive experience for all fans in attendance.”

 DDN is dead. BOGO is here. Shameful.

The Phils gave some quotes to the Inquirer in explaining the decision:

“Look, we’re very proud of this promotion,” said John Weber, the Phillies senior vice president of ticket operations and projects. “It’s been talked about. It’s been great for 27 years. But it was just time for a change. We’ve been discussing a change for the last couple years. The unfortunate incidents last year of the throwing of the hot dogs plus the feedback from our fans postgame survey, the fans told us that it was time for a change.”

Now you’ll recall that Pagan put two DDN stories on the site recently. The first one was titled “Phillies Dollar Dog Night isn’t Going Anywhere.” and the second was “Rumor: the Phillies Will Have Three Dollar Dog Nights This Year, Two in April.“ On the surface, you might feel to urge to cry “fake news!” and excoriate him for sharing incorrect information, but I actually think he deserves a lot of credit for this.

For starters, nobody else showed the type of initiative he did. He knew something was up. Why hadn’t DDN dates been announced? Something was fishy. So when everyone else was resting on their laurels, he did some investigative journalism and emailed Hatfield Meats. He got a response from a woman named Lisa, who said  “yes, there will be” Dollar Dog Nights, but added that “dates are not released yet.” Continuing the journalistic pursuit, he then heard from a source who said that two of the DDN nights would be April 2nd and April 16th, then added in his story the following:


“What’s apparently the most important decision, and a hold up, is a decision on the amount of dogs per transaction this year. We’re also hearing there will be severe consequences for people caught throwing dogs in the stadium.”

Pagan was in the vicinity. Really couldn’t get any warmer. He had the two dates correct, and the hold up was indeed the amount of dogs per transaction, which has been capped in a bogus BOGO fashion. As far as I’m concerned, Pagan led the charge on this and was only slightly burned by a Hatfield employee who maybe was not aware that DDN was changing formats this year. I don’t blame him, nor do I blame Lisa.

Pagan then said this:

I’m inclined to agree. Nobody wants BOGO dog night. Dollar Dog Night, like The Masters, is a tradition unlike any other. Imagine Penn State doing THON, but instead of dancing through the night, they just dance for a couple of hours. Who wants that? It’s not the same.

And let’s not act like projectile hot dogs are something new. We didn’t cancel DDN when the Phanatic injured a woman with a hot dog cannon, did we? We didn’t ban hot dog cannons, because hot dog cannons don’t injure people, people do:

Nobody should be punished for the transgressions of others. Was there any issue when Pagan was tossing glizzies to the crowd a couple of years ago? Hell nah. Fun was had by all. So some people get out of control with it, and now the solution is to punish everyone else? To take away their DDN experience? That’s not fair. And don’t even get me started on the “fans” who took the “postgame survey” and ratted out their fellow baseball supporters. You snitched. You narc’d. As Greta Thunberg once said, “how dare you!”