Who let this dog out?

I can still recall going to my first World Series game -- with my dad, in 1966 -- for what turned out to be the last game Sandy Koufax ever pitched.

The Dodgers lost, 6-0, en route to being swept in four straight by the Baltimore Orioles. But as dismal as that game was, I can also still recall the rich, biting flavor of the “spicy dog” and the crunch of the peanuts that I ate that day.

Hot dogs, peanuts, the World Series and my dad and me together on a fall afternoon -- it didn’t get much better than that.

Now I have my own son, Lucas. He’s 13. I’ve been taking him to Dodger Stadium since he was 9 months old, hoping to re-create -- and improve upon -- the memories I have of going to baseball games with my dad.

But the Dodgers haven’t been cooperative. They haven’t been in a World Series since the year before Lucas was born. They haven’t even been in a playoff game since 1996.

The performance at the concession stand has been even worse. Eating at Dodger Stadium is now even more painful than watching the Dodgers try to hit the ball -- and although I can’t tell you why the Dodgers are so futile at home plate, I did find out why they’re so futile at the dinner plate.

To be perfectly honest, I’ve never been a big fan of the basic Dodger Dog. I know, I know: It’s achieved near-iconic status in Los Angeles -- available in supermarkets everywhere, Farmer John’s gift to American culture, “made fresh right here in the Southland,” as announcer Vin Scully likes to say.

But a really good hot dog has a casing that snaps when you bite into it. Flavorful juices ooze out. The wiener itself is chewy and tasty.

Farmer John is none of the above. It’s soft and bland. Farmer John is also a longtime sponsor of Dodger broadcasts, though, and while the Dodgers may not be loyal to their players -- look how they dumped Mike Piazza -- they are loyal to their sponsors. Farmer John is here, alas, to stay.

Back in the early days of Dodger Stadium, I avoided this distasteful situation by eating what I did at that second game of the ’66 Series -- “spicy dogs.”

Unfortunately, the spicy dogs disappeared some time ago, to be replaced first by the “red hot” and, more recently, by the “picante” dog, which is less flavorful and distinctive (though still superior to the washed-out Dodger Dog).

Too bad. After all, food is integral to the ballpark experience, as much a part of the lore and romance of the game as cheering a home run, booing the umpire, standing for the seventh-inning stretch and singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

“Buy me some peanuts and Crackerjack, I don’t care if we never get back” notwithstanding, a good hot dog is the quintessential ballpark food -- almost as essential to my enjoyment of a game in the stadium as Scully is when I’m watching or listening at home. But while Scully is the Rolls-Royce of sportscasters, Farmer John is more like the Chevy Cavalier of frankfurters. (Consumer Reports on the 2003 Cavalier: “unpleasant, crude and outdated.”)

Charred, if not well done

There was a period in what I now think of as the “post-spicy dog era” when I found an alternative solution. Most of the hot dogs available near where I usually sat in those days were grilled, and I learned that if I ordered a well-grilled dog, it would have a quasi-charred flavor that greatly enhanced its otherwise insipid taste.

Unfortunately, the Dodgers now seem to steam most of the hot dogs at the concession stands nearest the season seats I’ve had for the last 20 years. When I do find a stand with grilled dogs and ask to have mine well-grilled, the vendor invariably looks at me as if I’ve asked her to broil Lassie.

So I’ve been searching for other edible options. For several years, Lucas and my wife and I were happy with Jody Maroni sausages -- which we’ve also long bought in supermarkets and at the Jody Maroni stand on the beach in Venice.

But Jody Maroni decided not to renew its contract with the Dodgers this year, and the Dodgers now get their sausages elsewhere.

Big mistake. The new sausages are too dry, their flavors too muted.

The Dodgers also changed purveyors of Mexican food this year.

Another mistake.

The King Taco tacos the Dodgers used to serve tasted sharp and spicy, the way the ones from the best taco carts taste. But King Taco also declined to renew its contract with the Dodgers this year, and the Dodgers and Aramark -- which has operated the food concession stands at the stadium since 1994 and operates them at 12 other major league parks as well -- replaced them with Camacho.

The meat in the Camacho tacos has virtually no flavor. The tacos at Taco Bell almost seem authentic by comparison.

Baffled and disgruntled by these revolting developments -- and certain that the scouting report on this year’s Dodgers should read, “Good pitch, no hit, bad food” -- I took off my Dodger cap, put on my reporter’s hat and started making a few calls.

Why did King Taco bow out?

King Taco spokesmen said the employees at Dodger Stadium didn’t prepare the tacos well enough or quickly enough, so they wanted to use their own employees. But the Dodgers have a union contract with food service employees and couldn’t make an exception.

Bye-bye, King Taco.

And Jody Maroni?

“Vendors pay the Dodgers a sponsorship fee to sell at Dodger Stadium,” says Richard Lievenberg, executive vice president of Jody Maroni’s Sausage Kingdom. “We decided our marketing dollars could be better spent elsewhere.”

I had the distinct impression that Jody Maroni might have stayed had they been given enough locations at Dodger Stadium to make their sponsorship fee worthwhile. “But we wanted more [stands] and couldn’t get them,” Lievenberg says.

I figured this was because their competition was not welcomed by Farmer John, and Bob Graziano, president of the Dodgers, essentially confirmed that for me when I visited him in his office at the stadium last week.

“We always try to protect our longtime partners,” he said. “We don’t want to create a situation where we would damage our relationship with someone who’s been here from Day One.”

That’s admirable. But why not at least grill more of those Farmer John hot dogs so they taste better?

Graziano says space and venting requirements limit the locations for grilling, but he insists there’s a 50-50 split between grilled and steamed dogs “on every level and throughout the park.” I told Graziano that I counted only four “grilled” signs at the 15 hot dog stands on the reserved level on my last visit.

“Well,” he said, “some of the signs have come down and haven’t been replaced.”

Oh.

In an effort to please fans, the Dodgers have added three oversized Farmer John hot dogs in recent years. Each has its own “special” topping. You can get a “New York” hot dog, topped with sauerkraut and onion; a “Southwestern” hot dog, topped with cheese, jalapeno peppers and chili; and a “Chicago” hot dog, topped with pickle, tomato, peppers and celery salt.

There’s only one problem with these hot dogs.

The hot dogs.

They’re bigger than the standard Dodger Dog, and Lon Rosenberg, director of stadium operations, and Dennis LaMalfa, vice president of sports and entertainment for Aramark’s Pacific region, both say they’re first steamed, then given a “finishing touch” on the grill.

But they’re still bland -- and they’re still mushy, all the more so under the soggy weight of all those toppings. Anyone who’s ever had a real Chicago hot dog -- not just in Chicago but at, say, Ruben’s Red Hots in Studio City, which serves Best Kosher dogs made in Chicago -- would be inclined to yell “fraud” if he ever bit into the feeble Dodger version of this venerable classic.

I suppose they could be worse. After all, the Dodgers’ salted-in-the-shell peanuts taste as if they’ve been at the bottom of the Dead Sea since the Pleistocene Era.

Most ballparks have expanded their culinary offerings in recent years. The Dodgers have joined the beyond-hot-dogs move, and they now sell hamburgers, burritos, pizza, sushi, and submarine and grilled chicken sandwiches.

Unfortunately, they’re almost all bad -- winnerless as well as wienerless.

I realize that some of the shift in what I’d reluctantly call Dodger cuisine is attributable to today’s dietary concerns. A vendor at Camacho’s told me that’s why their meat isn’t as flavorful as King Taco’s, and I note that the only two Subway sandwiches sold at Dodger Stadium are a turkey sandwich and a “cold cut trio” of ham, salami and bologna that is actually “turkey-based.”

Ugh! I don’t go to a ballgame to eat healthy. Those who do can order the sushi or the grilled chicken sandwich.

Promotion on a bun

When I told Graziano I thought food quality at Dodger Stadium had declined considerably this season, he said: “We have customer satisfaction surveys to help us evaluate what we’re doing in all areas.”

And what is the fans’ evaluation of the food these days?

“Pretty good,” he said.

That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement, especially from a longtime Dodger executive and enthusiast like Graziano. So I asked if he personally thought the food was as good as it used to be. He shrugged and said, “I’m too close to judge it.”

He also said, however, that in deciding which foods to offer, the Dodgers give considerable weight to a prospective purveyor’s willingness to “partner with us in more than just selling food -- in promotion and signage in the ballpark” and other ventures. That approach has contributed to a high turnover in purveyors, he acknowledged, as budgets and marketing strategies change on both sides.

Translation: Having what Graziano calls a lucrative “promotional fit” is more important than serving good food.

Back when the nation’s capital had a baseball team, the Senators were so consistently bad that the running joke was, “Washington -- first in war, first in peace and last in the American League.”

Dodger fans could update that to “Los Angeles -- last in home runs, last in batting average and first in indigestion.”

David Shaw can be reached at david.shaw@latimes.com.