I have finally reclaimed the record for the furthest distance to throw and catch a hot dog in a bun. I broke it with Jake Smith in early 2019 with a throw of 105 feet. It was then broken by some MIT students at my alma mater and then broken again recently with a mark of 156 feet 3 inches.

Jake is a phenomenal athlete and climbs ice falls, scales mountains, and flips on skis; but he decided his fastball probably wasn’t practiced enough to the dog to go over 50% further than last time.

It took multiple days of tries at the Cradlepoint Sales Summit in Boise starting with the all-hands BBQ gathering but the record has been reclaimed. Cradlepoint is over 1,200 people now with hundreds joining since the last time we got together so it was an open call at the BBQ for anyone who wanted to try their arm. We warmed up with baseballs and the former football and baseball players came out of the woodwork chucking baseballs well over 200 feet.

We then switched to hot dogs and several folks took turns hucking them as far as possible. Many broke on release. Others faltered in the air. There were a couple that traveled just over 156 feet but I failed to make clean catches in the bun losing the dog in the trees, having to dodge trees myself to get in position, or the dog hitting the bun at the wrong angle to fit in the slot.

After exhausting our supply of multiple types of dogs and buns the top performers were hungry to try again. We identified the top dog and I went out and bought a bunch more. We convened the next day at an open softball field to try again. After another hour and a half of failed attempts (2 we thought were good but on the review, the follow-through stepped across the throwing line), many broken dogs, exploded buns, close calls where the dog was caught but also touched my hand so was disqualified, cameras overheating and shutting off, Russell Phillips threw a hot dog 167 feet 5 inches and I cleanly caught it in a bun breaking the previous record by over 10 feet. Russell used to have a 90 MPH fastball and after 2 days of translating that motion to perfect the dog-throwing motion, he has broken his first Guinness World Records title.

Thanks to all the other throwers and those who helped out! Dillon Lukehart, Nick Horton, Brian Wood, Ken Tucker, Stoney Tuckness, Jennifer Erfurth, Marc Bresniker, Matt Anderson, and many more!