|
|
|
 News from Around the Americas | February 2008 
Roosters Fight as Well as Crow
 Richard Hyatt - Ledger-Enquirer
go to original
| | (Graphic from NYPost.com) | | |
Intermission came, and from nowhere men with mops washed away the blood. Others with brooms appeared. They swept away feathers and other debris. A hardwood floor was unfolded, covering the pit where moments ago roosters fought and died.
This was the scene at a cockfight I attended years ago in Mexico and little was different in an arena in the Dominican Republic where New York Mets ace Pedro Martinez recently participated in the ceremonial opening of a fight between unnamed male chickens.
A video of Martinez and Hall of Fame hurler Juan Marichal at the fight in their homeland has showed up on the Internet and animal rights activists in the United States cried fowl.
The video is still out there on the Internet and it's apparent that the two Dominican heroes were having fun. Each strokes a rooster then taunts the other one before the fight begins. Martinez's bird is defeated, but unlike Shea Stadium losers here don't live to compete another day.
The fights I saw were in a nice arena in downtown Monterrey. Seats circled above the pit below. A section of chair seats was reserved for special guests, which that evening included the governor and a party of VIPs.
Vendors passed among us selling Mexican beer in the bleachers where I sat. In each icy bottle of cold cerveza was a slice of lime - the first time I had seen that touch.
When lights around the arena dimmed, the spotlights on the pit seemed that much brighter. Handlers brought out the roosters for the first fight and action picked up. Bookies sitting in the bleachers stood and started taking bets.
"Rojo," somebody said, waving a roll of money they wanted to put on the red rooster.
"Blanco," another fellow yelled, placing his bet on the white one.
Fights were bloody. Each rooster wore metal spurs and when they danced in the air their opponent felt the blade. The more gruesome the fight, the more excited fans grew. If the rooster they risked money on didn't fight, people booed and jeered.
Fight after fight, the scene was repeated, then came intermission and the cleanup. That done, another kind of show began. Beautiful dancers in colorful costumes filled the stage along with a live mariachi band.
When the headliner with hair as black as his tuxedo was introduced, people stood and called his name. His name meant nothing to me, but the crooner was said to be the Frank Sinatra of Mexico. As the music ended, the pit again became a place to fight.
What I saw that night and what I glimpsed in the Pedro Martinez video is foreign to you and me. But in Mexico and the Dominican Republic, rooster fights are legal and as apart of the culture as the food they serve or the music they enjoy. Unlike Michael Vick and his dogs, Martinez' ceremonial involvement came in another culture - and it wasn't ours.
Cockfights may be nothing to cheer about, but in other worlds, they aren't necessarily fowl.
Contact Richard Hyatt rhyatt(at)ledger-enquirer.com |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us