At which New York ballpark did Harry M. Stevens allegedly use rolls for sausages in 1901? The answer is the Polo Grounds.
Harry M. Stevens was a prominent baseball concessionaire who supplied food at New York Giants games. According to the best-known version of the story, a cold 1901 game at the Polo Grounds produced little demand for ice cream, so Stevens’s staff sold German sausages in small bread rolls instead. The rolls provided a practical way to serve hot sausages without requiring customers to handle them directly.
The story is often presented as part of the origin legend of the American hot dog, but it is not proven that Stevens invented the food. Researchers note that sausages in buns and the expression “hot dog” appeared in print before some versions of the Stevens account, and the tale involving cartoonist Tad Dorgan is also disputed. “Allegedly” is therefore important wording.
The Polo Grounds was not the modern Yankee Stadium. It stood in Upper Manhattan and served as the home of the New York Giants before the club moved to San Francisco in 1958; the final Polo Grounds site was later associated with the New York Mets.