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Kid who went viral after dropping a hot dog gets the education of a lifetime

Four-year-old Matthew Hoobler went viral for dropping his dog at a White Sox game.

chicago white sox, wiener's circle, kid hot dog drop

A tasty major league baseball hot dog.

Four-year-old Matthew Hoobler went to his first major league baseball game on August 14 and sat in the first row with his father and 2-year-old brother at Chicago’s Guaranteed Rate Field. The Block Club Chicago reports the family was there to see the visiting Detroit Tigers, the dad’s favorite team, play the hometown Chicago White Sox.

During the TV broadcast, the announcers caught the boy eating a large hot dog when, oops, it slipped out of the bun and fell to the ground. The boy reacted to the mishap by giving himself the ultimate facepalm.

"Oh, the horrors!" and "Oh, the humanity," the announcers exclaimed when the frankfurter hit the floor. Video of the dropped dog went viral, with more than 2.3 million people seeing it after it was shared by the White Sox.


Reporters at Block Club Chicago tracked down the family and learned they lived in the suburb of La Grange, Illinois. After their identities were discovered, The Wiener's Circle, a legendary hot dog stand on Chicago’s north side, invited the boy for all-you-can-eat dogs and lessons on how to safely hold one in a bun taught by Chi-town’s dog-eating experts.

The Wiener's Circle is known for being a raucous place for people to chow down after a night out in Chicago. The staff is famous for hurling insults at customers or “curbside abuse,” as they call it. It’s also notorious for the $20 “chocolate shake” that offers a lot more than dessert.

Little Matthew learned the art of eating a hot dog from the best in the business. He even managed to learn how to hold a dog upside down.

He also showed off his famous facepalm.

Matthew’s dad, Rob, told Block Club Chicago that although his son gave a dramatic facepalm after losing his dog, he didn’t mind it all that much.

“He’s a bun fan. He likes the bun more than anything. So we got him a dog, and the rest is history,” Rob said. “When he started chomping at the bun, there wasn’t enough to hold the dog in place.”

Rob never even considered picking the dog up off the ground, even though the White Sox charge $5 for one.

“A lot of people in the comments mentioned the five-second rule,” Rob said. “Maybe at home, but not at a major league stadium.”

The Hoobler drop wasn’t the only major league hot dog debacle highlighted by The Wiener's Circle this week. A viral video with nearly 10 million views shows a man taking a hot dog, turning it into a straw and drinking his beer with it at a New York Yankees game.

The controversial move has been applauded by some and angered others. "Arrest this man," Nicolas Heller, posting as newyorknico, wrote on the original clip, which was later shared by Jomboy Media.

The Wiener's Circle applauded the move, noting that a hot dog is the “most environmentally friendly, edible straw known to man.” It also tastes a lot better drenched in mustard.

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