Very important news out of Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, via NJ.com:

Cheesesteaks are Philadelphia’s delicacy — a greasy stuffing of beef and lining of cheese inside a sub. Visiting teams are welcome to eat as many as they want or can, with the meal made for them at the ballpark, and a scoreboard tracks their feats. There are individual and team records for a single day or series.

On April 30, over some ten hours, the Mets ate 103, they say, setting the new single-day team record. Though baseball may be a sequence of individualized events, this was the work of a collective. It was planned two cheesesteaks per person, or more for those that were willing to help out where other teammates could not eat their share.

The story notes that the Mets’ two most voracious cheesesteak-eaters are both bullpen catchers, who can presumably perform their duties despite stomachs overfilled with bread, meat and Cheez Whiz. And the Mets-Phillies contest was rained out on the day in question, giving the club more time to eat and more time to digest.

Still, this seems like a huge and brilliant potential home-field advantage that more clubs should make use of. Welcome all opponents with a huge pile of some fatty local delicacy in the clubhouse, then take advantage of their competitive instincts by challenging them to eat more than any club that has come through town before, and prepare to dominate sluggish lineups battling food comas.

How much better would the Milwaukee Brewers be this season if all visiting teams at Miller Park were stuffed with pork sausage long before gametime? And maybe the Mets themselves could climb above .500 if they would only challenge opponents to eat the most pizza.

Greasy food is the new market inefficiency.