But I don't like to imagine him watching Chickens peck each other to death..even if it is legal

It's part of their culture.  I don't hear anybody complain about ball players that hunt!  

this is big over there, who cares is all i have to say.  so the guy has a hobby, ohhh no!

mcripper above puts it best, hunting is a hobby over here where we KILL animals, watching a couple chickens flirt with each other... not gonna lose any sleep over this one.

I can't say that I'm thrilled to learn that ARam is into cockfighting, but this knowledge really doesn't change all that much for me. I mean, I'm not crazy about bullfighting either, but if I found out Alfonso Soriano used to be a matador, it wouldn't keep me from looking forward to watching him take balls out of the park in a couple months.

I suppose a story like this raises the whole issue of how we, as human beings, tend to assign differing levels of worth on different animals. Tell me ARam is engaged in dog fighting (a la Michael Vick) and suddenly this turns into a horror story/scandal that could affect the Cubs entire season. Tell me he likes to watch roosters peck the stuffing out of each other and...meh. I mean, if those same birds were female, we'd be hacking their heads off and eating them. (Most of us, at least. I'm a former vegetarian myself.)  Maybe that's not fair, but I think that's how most people will see this.

is whether or not these chickens are steroid and hormone free.  I'd be real upset if this was juiced up cockfighting.

Cockfighting is animal abuse at its worst.  I find it very disturbing that Aramis Ramirez is involved in such a thing, let alone has the balls to be publicly quoted on the subject.  

Sorry, but this really, really sucks.   In the wake of the Michael Vick fiasco you would think professional athletes (and anybody in general) would have new sensitivity to this crap.  

It just goes to show, some of the biggest scumbags on earth are the people that are hero worshipped on a ballfield.    

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockfighting

Read up before you get your panties in a bunch.

Cockfighting has historical significance even the United States.

It's just a part of culture, as is cricket fighting in some asian cultures. It's not like he's partaking in some illegal underground cock fighting here in the states, it' s back in his hometown where it is a legitimate hobby and some could say sport. I say don't criticize a guy because his culture says something is ok when ours says it isnt.

I really don't like those guys, they protest everything.....back when I was in high school, they protested over a charity donkey basketball game my school had planed.  We had to cancel it...and I never got to play basketball on a donkey...I'm still sad about that....

he's not doing it here, I'll just say "well, I don't get it, but then, I don't get the fact that I have TWO competitive fishing channels either" and move on.  However, please don't tell my fiancee, because as an ex-Marlins fan, she put enough of a hex on the Cubs as it is last year.

Someone from the front office shoud sit down with Aramis and tell him "What you do in the Dominican is your business, but please don't get involved with cockfighting in the US"

As long as this doesn't happen here, it shouldn't effect him or the Cubs.

I personally wouldn't do it but I'm not going to tell him what is right or wrong in his culture.

that BCB readers were such cultural relativists?  

Does anyone have the PECOTA projections for the these chickens?  Do they have fantasy cockfighting blogs?

...but I also read and post at "bleedcockyred.com"

This comes from a reliable source close to the club. I'm told that several current Cubs players enjoy watching the Westchester Dog Show in their spare time.

If it was uncovered that Aramis had a house in the suburbs somewhere, where he had hundreds of chickens and was funding an interstate cock fighting operation, THEN this would be an issue.  

However, when the man goes back to his home country, he should be allowed to live by the laws and moral standards that his native country has in place.  What, just because he plays for the Cubs he should have to adopt America's culture and standards in the Dominican? That makes no sense.  

Just Shut Up candidate. Are these guys just totally brain dead or what?

This is going to create so much more controversy than it is worth.

Just like sin city, "what happens there stays there".

I get the feeling that if we somehow got some kind of omniscient perspective on the pastimes and interests of the Cubs' roster, we might not like too many of them. At all.

I might not like how some choose to spend their money, time and life. I may even be so obnoxiously bold to speak out about it and say how inappropriate or barbaric it might be. That would be my right to do so - and anyone else's. It's a free country.

So if PETA wants to freak out and do their thing and people want to protest, let them. Go for it.
But this tempest in a teapot doesn't change my opinion of ARam or his ability to play - and it surely doesn't make me believe he's innately an amoral character. Because as has been said, cockfighting is part of the make up of the Dominican cultura. It's not our cup of tea, here in America where we spend billions on doggie raincoats and kitty litter, but that's the name of that tune culturally.

For me, I guess I'm not as sensitive to it because of my own Mexican ethnicity. I didn't see cockfights growing up but heard about them in the hidden corners of el barrio around 95th and Avenue O in the South Side. We certainly did see our share of bull fighting - raw and uncut - when it got aired on TV on channel 26 in the 1960's. One of my earliest memories is watching a matador skewer a mountainous bull to the inevitable i Oles! on Friday nights with my parents and uncles eating pizza. It was just the way it was.

It was a seamless part of the social order back then and even today. Here in the South, cockfighting is still a sport that many a Southern man has had to steal away to enjoy. Busts of keepers still happen now and then.

Do I engage in it? No. I am an animal lover and own two cats myself and have cared for them for over 15 years. I think both sports are indeed cruel and brutal and that I couldn't begin to fathom how watching this could entertain me at all.  But I don't think that the standards of the Latino culture that accepts this brutality are hardly any inferior to the standards of the Anglo one all around us. Personally, I think that there's not a few questionable choice "pastimes" we indulge in our culture without thinking that are just as brutal and tasteless .. and cruel .. and they involve human beings.

Personally, being of Mexican extraction and aware of this side of my culture and my own personal feelings about animals, I'm not that enthused about it. But it is a different world. If ARam is part of that difference, I will respect it if not actively support or condone it.

Rick Morrisey has what I think is a good commentary on this matter over at ChicagoSports.com.

People should be upset that someone is harming animals, I love all God's creatures, special with a little seasoning and spicies.  Ok, seriously if you upset that Big Z goes home to his country and practices what is legal there, fine.  I'm would never go to or support anything like that but to tell a someone that he should not do something that is legal is hard for me to believe.  I've spent time in South Korea, I don't hear anyone blasting Byung-Hyun Kim for eating Kagogi (Dog meat) or Fuke for eating whale meat, oh and by the way it legal in those countries to do those kinds of things.  Let me say that for cheap seats:  IT'S LEGAL!  If PETA wants to protest that fact, it's their right (I should know I defend those rights everyday), if you choose not to go to a Cubs game because Big Z is pitching and you are upset because he partakes in cockfighting in his off time, that's your right (if you choose to do this please mail your tickets to me as I have never been to a Cubs game in person).  When he starts violating US laws give me a call, or when they outlaw cockfight in DR let me know, till then I'll be in Germany drive as fast as my car will go or in Spain watching idiots getting trampled to death by 2 tons of running snot with horns (at least there the bulls get to extract a little pre-revenge), or even standing on the line defending your rights to scream how horrible Big Z and Pedro are, I'm glad to do it.  

you must mean aramis. Anyways this is what's on the first page of that magazine.

"No creo que exista una balanza entre el béisbol y los gallos, los dos deportes son buenos, tampoco creo que uno tenga más fanático que otro, por que el dominicano es tanto gallero como pelotero

"I dont think there is a balance between baseball and cockfigthing, both are great sports. I believe you can't choose between the two because a Dominican   is a cockfigther as much as he is a ballplayer."

We'll talk about anything as long as a Cub is involved...nasty creatures those roosters.

I get enough half-assed moralizing from the students in my ethics sections. This is a basbeall blog, Ramirez' off-the-field, legal habits are beyond our scope. Let's move on, please. Surely there's a Brian Roberts rumor, or something of that sort we could all get in palaver about.

anything like this. People are still allowed to think and express what they want in this country (at least until politicians take that away for our own good too), but this whole diary is rediculous! So rather than argue what most people think all ready (cockfighting = bad), I will put this out there.

Why do we care so much what people in other countries want to do? We don't have a grip on our country and it's only getting worse. We have sad, illegal, immoral, things happening here at home everyday. Helpless children starving with no insurance, people with no jobs or means of getting one that pays better than minimum wage so they milk the unemployment system, medicare and social security probably won't exist when anyone my age or younger is ready to retire, the list goes on and on.

So please don't think of me as insensitive if I don't worry much about people watching chickens fight for fun in the Dominican Republic. It is sad to hear of things like this going on in the world, but at some point we need to worry more about what is happening at home.