Selden man goes to the dogs - and buns

Meet Eric Booker, an affable man living in Selden. He's a husband, father to three sons and recording artist who works for New York City Transit. He's 41 years old.

Now meet Eric "Badlands" Booker, an affable man ranked 12th in the world in competitive eating. He's a nine-time world champion in Major League Eating, including records for the fastest consumption of burritos, corned beef hash, pumpkin pies and matzo balls.

The afternoon of July Fourth, however, it's all about HDBs - hot dogs and buns. Booker is due to compete against defending champion Joey Chestnut and other world-class eaters at Nathan's 94th annual hot dog eating contest in Coney Island. It's as much a summer tradition as going to the beach.

And hot dogs are exactly how Booker got started in gastronomical gravitas.

"I mostly did it for the free hot dogs," he says.

That was 13 years - and millions of calories - ago.

On June 21, 1997, Booker, then living in Long Beach, saw a poster for a hot dog eating contest at the Oceanside Nathan's on Long Beach Road.

"I had no training, no experience, other than eating a lot at the table," Booker said. "But I said, 'Let me try out for this.' "

He won. A total of 17 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes. His prize? A year's worth of free hot dogs.

Mix in a little training - surprisingly, lots of low-calorie food and water - and Booker can now throw down 40 hot dogs in a competition. He inhaled 38.5 HDBs in May in Massachusetts to qualify for this year's Nathan's contest.

Yes, you have to qualify for the right to gorge yourself as fast as you can on a Coney Island boardwalk on Independence Day.

That's where Booker's four-pronged attack comes in handy. He calls it "the sweet science of competitive eating."

1) Capacity: "Getting my body used to holding a lot of food."

2) Strategy: "Any matter or mass can be used to train your stomach. It wouldn't be beneficial to hit up a buffet because you get all those extra calories."

3) Stamina: "Ten minutes is a long time to eat anything."

4) Focused mind: "Your mind leads, and the body follows."

Hence the title of four rap albums he has produced: "Hungry and Focused."

Booker said his caloric consumption hasn't led to health problems. He gets regular checkups and blood tests - at least three times a year, he said, "to check my numbers - and thank God they are all very good. They want me to keep working on losing weight, but otherwise, I'm healthy."

During the week, Booker does construction flagging on the subway tracks at night, protecting the workers who repair and upgrade the tracks and tunnels. He also has been a subway conductor on the No. 7 train.

On weekends, Booker offers no protection, no sense of safety. Competitive eating is a dog-eat-hot-dog world.

"I'm pretty much an adventurous eater. I'll try anything once," Booker says. "Even if it's a little crazy. Why not? I do it for more than a little payday. I do it for the camaraderie, the stories.

"There are times where I have entered a glutton bowl and the final round was cow brains. Imagine staring at all those frontal lobes."

Still, even the 400-pound man they call "Badlands" must hesitate once or twice with the chosen food at a contest. "I have my limits," he said. "I wouldn't eat any grasshoppers or chocolate-covered ants."