Special report: The cheerleader who wore a hot dog costume

By Matt Vensel
Baltimore Sun
March 7, 2011

I only do hard-hitting journalism here at Baltimore Sports Blitz, and I have a smashing special report from Ravens cheerleader tryouts on Sunday.

Remember the cheerleader who wore a hot dog costume at M&T Bank Stadium last fall while her teammates celebrated Halloween by dressing as sexy cowgirls and nurses and things like that?

Well, the readers of my old blog certainly do. Brian Krista, the images editor at b, snapped a photo of a Ravens cheerleader dressed as a sausage in October. It became a photo caption challenge sensation, and the post was picked up by SI.com’s Hot Clicks after I sent out a shameless plug via email.

We all wondered how this poor girl got stuck with the hot dog costume, and given the opportunity to interview Ravens cheerleaders at the Merritt Downtown Athletic Club on Sunday, I went after the answers you all demanded.

I asked Jaime A., a six-year veteran, for the inside scoop on Stephanie P., who didn’t try out for the team this year (Jaime said it was because of a long commute from out of state, but I don’t know if I’m buying it).

“There was bad publicity on that apparently, that it was the worst Halloween costume ever,” Jaime said.

I stopped her and pointed out that my post was the genesis.

“Oh, was that you?” Jaime said with a laugh. “No, she was the biggest champ ever. We love Stephanie. The funny story with that is that at camp, we do — not hazing — but funny, little skits and stuff to make the rookies more comfortable. So my friend Andrea and I decided to make Stephanie sing the Oscar Meyer wiener song in front of the whole team.

“And she did the best job of it at the end. She did the whole skit and yelled, ‘Go meat!’ So we were like Stephanie would be perfect for the hot dog costume. And she was like, ‘I’ll do it! I’ll do it!'”

I pointed out that in the photo, Stephanie looked totally miserable.
“I know! Her face was …” she said, stopping to make a sad face. “But Stephanie was totally awesome. She was a trooper.”

So for those who were wondering, here you go. It’s not the most exciting story, but at least we now have clarity.