Lehigh Valley, Fresno Raise Taco-Bacon Stakes

A fight between tacos and bacon was always bound to be a little bit salty, but the Lehigh Valley IronPigs and the Fresno Grizzlies pushed their rivalry way past the boiling point on Tuesday afternoon.

After spending days bickering on Twitter about whose nom-nom-nom de plume is superior, the clubs agreed that this wasn’t going to be settled with words alone. So they teamed up with Brandiose–the design firm that came up with the artwork for each team’s logos–and came away with a creative way to bury the hatchet, and sell a little more merchandise in the process.

In dueling emails on Tuesday, the teams announced the creation of a new website, baconvstacos.com, which will seek to settle the argument once and for all. While Fresno and Lehigh Valley have never been mad love, they’ve certainly reached new heights of bad blood. Fans can vote for their favorite team until May 29. The loser will have to wear the winner’s cap on the field for a game at a date to be announced in June. Fans can also tweet #TeamTacos or #TeamBacon for a chance to win prize packs from their favorite club.

 

“If anyone thinks this is just for fun, I can assure you fun has nothing to do with it,” Grizzlies general manager Derek Franks said in a statement. “We’re so tired of all the IronPigs bacon propaganda on Twitter, always butting in on our good time. We’ve talked about banning carnitas tacos from Chukchansi Park during the voting.  Some fans have suggested we compromise to end this feud by putting bacon on tacos . . . no.”

Not to be outdone, the IronPigs and general manager Kurt Landes fired back at Fresno and assured them that this fight wouldn’t be over easy.

“They picked the wrong team to pick a food fight with,” Landes said. “We’re sick and tired of their fake news and alternative facts. We’re even banning tacos from Coca-Cola Park when we don our ‘Fighting Bacon’ caps on-field for the very first time on Saturday, May 27 as part of Bacon vs. Tacos Night. Bacon was first and bacon is best. Period.”

Regardless of your allegiance, there’s no question that both clubs are in the upper echelon of the minors’ most creative promotional staffs. Fresno took home the Golden Bobblehead award, handed out at MiLB’s yearly promo seminar, in 2015 and Lehigh Valley took the honor a year later.

Even with the contest and the website, you can rest assured that the minors’ foremost food fight is just starting to simmer. So get your vote in while you can, because the steaks … er, stakes … have never been higher.