Edward Slotkin, Brought Ball Park Franks to Tigers fans
Hyfler/Rosner
August 23, 2003
BY JEANNE MAY
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Edward James Slotkin, whose meat company supplied Ball Park Franks to
thousands of hungry Tigers baseball fans, died of cancer Thursday at
Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak.
He was 87 and lived in Bloomfield Hills.
In 1947, his family moved Hygrade Food Products from New York to Michigan,
and Mr. Slotkin soon followed.
Hygrade set up shop on Michigan Avenue in Detroit.
In 1959, the Tigers started looking for a better hot dog to serve and held a
contest. Hygrade won with the hot dogs that, according to its slogan, "plump
when you cook 'em."
Ten years later, Hygrade moved to Southfield, and Mr. Slotkin served as
president until the business was sold in 1976.
"For about a year, he retired -- until my mother said, 'You're driving me
crazy,' " his son, John, said Friday. "So, he bought a little company, a
meatpacking company, Hotel-Restaurant Institution. He bought it from
Hygrade, and it supplied restaurants and cafeterias and things like that.
"And for 12 or 13 years, he ran that."
Then once again, he retired.
"About 10 years ago, he was bored, so he went to work with my cousin doing
meat brokering," his son said.
Until his final illness, Mr. Slotkin drove to work every day.
He was married to Shirley Eder, a show-biz columnist whose work appeared in
the Free Press from the 1960s to 1993. As she met and dined with a string of
Hollywood stars, he was at her side.
"When he was sick in the hospital, he was talking about Bob Hope and Frank
Sinatra and having dinner with all these people," his son said. "And a nurse
called me and said, 'We think your father is having delusions.'
"But I assured her, he wasn't . . .
"He had a good time. He loved going to opening nights. He was a very nice
man, a big guy -- about 6-1, 212 -- and he was a lovable kind of guy you
wanted to hug."
Mr. Slotkin was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Manhattan and earned a
bachelor's degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey. He had been a
trustee of the university since 1967.
During World War II, he served as a captain in the Army and was stationed in
Alaska. He was a longtime member of Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Township.
Besides his son and wife of 59 years, survivors include a daughter, Toni.
The funeral will be at 12:30 p.m. Sunday at the Ira Kaufman Chapel, 18325 W.
Nine Mile Road, Southfield. Burial will be Wednesday in Salem Fields, a New
York cemetery.
The family suggests memorial donations to the Jewish Hospice and Chaplaincy
Network, 24123 Greenfield, Southfield 48075, or the Rutgers University
Foundation, Winants Hall, 7 College Ave., New Brunswick, N.J. 08901.