Just a "good old boy" saying

I just read a little blurb about Kinky Friedman, who is running for governor of Texas. Evidently in one of his campaign ads he quotes this bit of cowboy wisdom:

"Ask any cowboy and he'll tell ya, money may buy you a fine dawg but only love can make her wag her tail."

This brought to my recollection another ‘good old boy’ comment I heard one time. A sales exec I knew had been down in Georgia on business, apparently in an area known as a hotbed of men’s fastpitch softball. He went to a game one night and watched a team that had a clean-up hitter who was evidently a scourge of the league and teams were afraid to pitch to him. After three intentional walks, he came up for a fourth at bat; after the first ball, some guy about 80 years old stood up and yelled, “Let the big dog eat.”

I don’t know why, but that just really struck us all as hilarious. That became a standard. “LET THE BIG DOG EAT”