Meet Oakland Athletics’ ‘Hal the Hot Dog Guy,’ the team’s unofficial mascot

Gliding up and down the nearly empty Oakland Coliseum stands in his cheery red and white-striped vest, green and yellow bow tie and newsboy’s cap, Hal Gordon looks like an old-time carnival barker.

He’s barking, all right, but for a different reason.

“Hey doggy-a doggy-a doggy-a doggy-a doggyyyyy!” growls “Hal the Hot Dog Guy” Gordon as he hawks his wares from a vintage steamer during a recent A’s game.

Gordon, 34, who also goes by “Hal the Pal,” and “Hal the Hot Dog Economist,” has been an A’s hot dog vendor and its unofficial cheerleader since June 2017, and even has his own baseball cards and pins that he hands out to his many adoring fans at the Coliseum.

But Gordon is also a full-time student, and he’ll be known as “Dr. Gordon” next year when he graduates with a doctorate degree in agriculture and resource economics from UC Berkeley.

A Chicago native, Gordon got his start slinging franks as a teenager in 2005 at the Cub’s venerable ivy-walled Wrigley Field. Since that first gig, he’s worked as a vendor for other professional sports teams around the country, including the San Francisco Giants, the former Oakland Raiders, the Washington Nationals, the Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Blackhawks.

But it was at the Oakland Coliseum where Gordon really connected with his inner entertainer, thanks to longtime A’s vendor James “Jimmy” Graff. The veteran took Gordon under his wing and even sent him to his personal tailor in San Francisco where the younger man got his hand-stitched vest made and custom patches sewn on. They worked as a team until Graff died suddenly on Christmas Day in 2019 at the age of 49.

“Jimmy’s vending philosophy was not to sell the most stuff and make the highest commission, but make the most smiles,” Gordon said.

At a price of $7.71 each, the hot dogs may be one of the best deals at the ballpark. Gordon receives a flat per game fee from the A’s, and he also does very well with tips. Heck, he’s got a doctorate to pay for. He sells anywhere from 70 to 120 dogs a game, depending on the crowd, and he memorizes the orders of his many regular customers.

And he’s the king of condiments — featuring four kinds of mustard, two kinds of relish, ketchup, mayo, onions, capers, Sriracha, sauerkraut and jalapenos.

“They’re the best hot dogs in the whole park, no question,” said Colt Rosensweig of Menlo Park, who was watching the game with her two Doberman pinscher service dogs Caris and Kaline.

Gordon wouldn’t know. A vegetarian, he doesn’t eat hot dogs himself, but he soon plans to modify his steamer tray to offer some veggie dogs. He describes himself as “one part vendor, one part cheerleader/mascot.”

“I’ll get the crowd going when the A’s are up at bat. I like to bring as much excitement to the game as I can, and only half of that is about hot dogs,” Gordon said.

During a recent night game against the Houston Astros, Gordon carried his 60-pound metal steamer while weaving his way through the sparse crowd. He logs about four miles per game and uses metal tongs to rhythmically bang on its side while amping up fans with one of his familiar chants: “Let’s go, Oakland! Let’s go, Oakland! Let’s eat hot dogs!”

Like his predecessor, Gordon serves up a ton of personality with the extra mustard. He enjoys kids and likes to squirt them with his prank ketchup bottle, which shoots out a long red string to startle customers.

“Hal is original. And we like original,” A’s fan Chris Takeda of Hayward said. Takeda was at the game with his mother Mae Takeda, 84, a 30-year season-ticket holder who describes herself as “old.”  “He supports his fans and has a big fan base.”

Like other quirky, beloved vendors around major league baseball, Gordon has capitalized on his schtick with his own baseball cards, T-shirts and other merchandise.

Gordon admits that the players would rather be playing for 20,000 to 30,000 people a night, and he’d love to vend to that many, but he’s making the best of it in the meantime.

“Since coming here and getting to know all of the fans, I’m now an A’s fan for life,” Gordon said. “There are fewer fans than past years, but the ones who are here really love it. The team and the community mean so much to them.”

Though the A’s are in the cellar both in the American League West standings and in 2022 attendance with an average of 8,475 fans per game, the fans who still come out to cheer on their beloved team are very loyal. One of them is super fan Dave Edlund, of Oakland, who’s also a Giants fan and known for retrieving home run balls from his kayak in McCovey Cove.

“He has a good beat and he has two or three really cool songs that we all join in on,” Edlund said of Gordon.

With the A’s future in Oakland uncertain as its owners try to work out a complex deal for a new waterfront ballpark at Howard Terminal near Jack London Square, Gordon said it would be a shame if the team ended up moving to Las Vegas. While he’s here, he wants to make it as much fun for fans as he can.

“If they leave, there won’t be a place to go and cheer ‘Let’s go Oakland’ anymore,” Gordon said.