Fatso's favorite foods: Dinner with Art Donovan
He’s 85 now and rarin' to go -- at dinner time, anyway. Art Donovan, the Baltimore Colts lineman and Football Hall of Famer, can still tackle a big meal with the best of them.
His appetite is the stuff of legend. During the 1950s, the Colts tried to curb Donovan’s gluttony by offering a $2,000 bonus every season he managed to keep his playing weight under 275 pounds. Sometimes he got the cash, sometimes not.
Photo: Colby Ware / Special to The Baltimore Sun
"His weekly weigh-in before each game was a story," teammate Gino Marchetti said. "Donovan would take his clothes off, piece by piece, and weigh himself after each one.
"His last hope was always his false teeth. A couple of times he had to take them out to make weight."
Donovan himself always addressed the matter with self-deprecating humor.
"You know you’re big when you sit in the bathtub and the water in the toilet rises," he said.
Nowadays, what are Fatso’s choice delights?
1. Kosher hot dogs
"I love em. They sell ‘em on street corners in New York. I used to eat 15 of 16 at a time when I went up there to see my mother. The hot dogs at Harry’s in Westminster are good too -- I once had 25 of them."
2. Pizza
"Make mine with extra pepperoni and sausage. Once, in San Diego, I ordered three pizzas but couldn’t eat the third so I put it on the television set and left the TV on all night to keep it warm. I ate the pizza the next morning."
3. Kosher cold cuts
"Especially bologna, salami and corned beef from the Weiss Deli on Lombard Street."
4. All Italian food
"Saltimbocca, veal parmesan and lasagna. With my diet, people said I’d be dead at 50. Well, I’ve got 35 years on ‘em. I’ve never eaten a vegetable except for lettuce and cole slaw, and I never eat chicken or turkey. Don’t like what it looks like."
5. Cheeseburgers from Padonia Station in Timonium
"They have one named after me, ‘The Artie Donovan Burger’ ($18.99). It weighs 24 ounces. I took one home and heated it up. It barely fit in the microwave."
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Comments
It may be hard to think of a 270 lb Hall of Fame defensive tackle as a beautiful person, but Arthur is a beautiful human being.
I produced the funniest sports show ever on radio, with Art and Charlie Eckman. It was converted to TV as "Mayhem on 33rd Street.
At WCBM, we had a new pizza sponsor. They sent 2 big pizza pies to the station. Charlie, our engineer and I ate one. Art took care of the other.
Art and I were both guests at a Father and Son dinner at Har Sinai. Art ask me to ask my contact for a dozen of the kosher hot dogs to go because he was driving to N.Y. that night and wanted a snack.
Before my contact came out of the kitchen, another guy comes out with a big bag and says, "Mr. Donovan, here's your dozen hot dogs."
My guy then comes out with the 2nd dozen, which I assume Art finished off also enroute to New York.
Can imagine 2 of the funniest men in sports on one radio show? It worked.
Posted by: Fred Neil | April 12, 2009 10:14 AM