Yet Another Case of Oral Arthritis

What? You’ve never even heard of temporomandibular joint disorder? Yeah, me neither.

Less than two weeks before Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Competition that I was admittedly really looking forward to ever since the seemingly unstoppable Kobayashi’s world record was broken, show-stopping news comes from the King’s camp:

“Kobayashi writes that he can only open his famous hatch as wide as a fingertip without suffering extreme pain and draws a comparison to a baseball pitcher with torn elbow ligaments.

George Shea, a spokesman for Major League Eating — the group that hosts the famous competition — said that Kobayashi’s condition was “day to day,” but as far as the group knew, he would still attend next week’s event.” (more)

We’re just barely into the 82 day stretch of summer that has baseball as pretty much the only show in town—we simply can’t afford to lose stars from our majors. First Lefty and his wrist, now Kobayashi and his jaw? ‘Tis a sad day…