A friend of mine at college has a high school friend who’s in Peru this summer. He sent the two of us an email to introduce us. Here’s how he described me: “Pete is a sports-loving traveller who also happens to enjoy fun. He’s from New York and therefore loves hot dogs, baseball, the Mets, culture, tall buildings, and does not like parking.”

That I am a New Yorker is probably not the source of my love for hot dogs. That I love baseball might better explain why I crave plastic-encased mystery meat. Regardless, I love baseball, New York, and — of course — hot dogs.

So it’s no surprise I loved the op-ed piece in today’s New York Times by a former hot dog vendor at Ebbets Field, the storied home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, about the old days of ballpark hot dogs.