The Dodger dog is the rare sandwich whose defining feature is that the filling does not fit the bread. The frankfurter is a ten-inch pork dog, longer than the bun it sits in, so an inch or more of sausage juts past each end and the eater is committed to the dog before reaching any bread at all. That overhang is not a flaw to be corrected; it is the point. The proportion is built to make the sausage the entire experience and the bun a handle, and every other decision in the sandwich follows from that one.
The craft is in matching a soft carrier to a long, lean frankfurter eaten in a stadium seat. The pork dog is grilled or steamed, the grilled version tightening the skin and adding a faint char that the steamed version trades for a cleaner, juicier bite. The bun is plain and soft and deliberately too short, which means it compresses to the middle of the dog and gives the hands a grip without competing for attention or adding bulk to something already long. Condiments are applied by the eater rather than built in: mustard, ketchup, relish, and chopped onion, worked along the exposed length of the sausage rather than tucked inside, because there is no inside to speak of. This is concession food engineered to be carried up a ramp and through a crowd without a tray, sturdy enough to dress one-handed and eat across nine innings, which is why it stays simple and long rather than loaded and short.
The variations stay within the ballpark-frank idea and are mostly a matter of cooking method and the local sausage. The grilled version is its own argument against the steamed one over snap and char. Other parks run their own franks under their own names, the Fenway Frank and the regional stadium dogs each built to a different sausage and a different topping convention. The broader American hot dog spreads from there into the Chicago build, the coney, and the Sonoran. Each of those is a codified sandwich with its own rules and deserves its own article rather than being crowded in here.