Down On Pedro

So there’s supposedly a video of Pedro Martinez and Juan Marichal involved in a cockfight in the Dominican Republic. I haven’t seen it, and don’t want to. I’ve been struggling with the issue all day, because on the one hand I’ve truly enjoyed rooting for Pedro since he became a Met but I also hold animal rights in high regard. Anyone who has visited this site for a while probably knows how I feel about animals.

And while I don’t want to make MetsToday a platform for animal rights — that’s not what the site is about — at the same time it’s impossible for me to address the issue. So I’ll simply go on record here and say I’m EXTREMELY disappointed in Pedro’s participation in a cockfight. While I understand that cockfighting is part of Dominican culture, that doesn’t make it right. The way I see it, animals don’t have a choice — unlike human boxers, who have the free will to decide whether or not to go into a ring and beat each others’ brains out. As human beings, with the ability to reason and no inherent need to force animals to kill each other, I see no logical reason to put roosters in a ring together. It serves no purpose other than to satisfy sick, selfish desires to witness violence and/or feel the thrill of winning dirty money.

If you see no problem with it, that’s your issue and I don’t want to hear about it — I find it abhorrently offensive, inhumane, and completely against our purpose as human beings on this planet. It’s bad enough that we’re so stupid as to kill each other with bullets and bombs — but to force animals into the same sick arena for temporary thrills is inexcusable. And yes I understand Darwin’s theory that the “only the strongest survive” and I do know that animals kill each other in nature. But there’s nothing “natural” about pitting two animals against each other in a ring while wild-eyed idiots scream at the top of their lungs, throw down filthy bills and drench their libidos with cheap whiskey.

As a result, it’s going to be hard for me to root for Pedro as passionately as I did in the past. While it’s true no one’s perfect, and certainly there are plenty of players who have committed violent crimes of equal or worse proportions (Elijah Dukes, Julio Lugo, Delmon Young, Brett Myers, etc.), it’s extremely bothersome to find out that one of “our own” is guilty of such misgivings. I’d be less disappointed if Pedro were included in the Mitchell Report, because at least he was doing something to himself, rather than being part of hurting someone else.

I’ve said my peace, and put my opinion “on record”. That’s all I wanted to do — bring some seriousness to an issue that too many people dismiss as irrelevant. My hope is that Pedro and/or the Mets understand that some of us find this kind of behavior unacceptable, and help spread the message that inflicting pain on other, vulnerable creatures is NOT cool. Such actions do nothing other than show how dispassionate, selfish, and ugly the human race can be.

Pitchers and catchers report in less than a week …