Jews in Sports: Rum Diary

The summer season is here in full force. Sunshine, heat, humidity, and power outages don’t always make for an ideal blend. This is the time when tempers flare, and actions boil over towards regrettable.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about for this week’s edition of Jews in Sports. After all, last week the Boston Red Sox traded away their career infielder, Kevin Youkilis, and cash to the Chicago White Sox for a decent – at best – pitcher, and a utility player. That the “Greek G-d of Walks”, and Member of the Tribe, had turned into something more along the lines of the “Greek G-d of Underperformance” certainly warranted reprimand. But, alas, a trade, too, was as inevitable as it was astounding, after the early season flare-up between the third baseman and his new manager, Bobby Valentine.

What more could I add that you didn’t yet know about the separation between player and franchise. Was this early-season clubhouse disturbance a carry-over from Valentine’s days spent in New York as the Mets’ skipper? Doubt it.
I’m almost certain everyone knows about Youk’s performance decline in detail, as that has been under a microscope since the end of last season. However, for those few who were made unaware, here it is in a nutshell. Youkilis batted just .231, with a .698 OPS (On-Base plus Slugging) average, since returning from the disabled list May 22. He’s also only had eight extra-base hits in those last 82 at-bats.

It seems that the beautiful blend of Youkilis and the Fenway faithful was on the ropes since April, when the damage caused by Bobby V’s verbal venting proved irreparable. And so the inevitable divorce, ugly and rotten as it was, finally came to fruition.

With baseball on my mind, I came to Puerto Rico looking high and low for a method to experience the past-time that makes the Puerto Rican baseball team so successful. On the island that’s fielded All-Star players from the likes of Roberto Clemente to Ivan Rodriguez, I wanted to catch a glimpse of the next up-and-coming diamond dandy through this wonderful isle’s past-time.

As I was quick to discover, there was but one quandary. Baseball is not the true Puerto Rican love affair. That distinction belongs to the brutal arena of Cockfighting.
For the animal-loving persons among us, consider yourselves warned. This is simply something that PETA cannot do anything about, try as it may. And yet, while recently taking in the spectacle that gets many locals – young and old alike – riled up with bloodlust, I couldn’t help myself from being overcome with a sense of coliseum-like anxiety.

Is there really a difference between this arcane “sport,” which can be traced back thousands of years, to that of boxing, mixed martial arts, or even football and ice hockey? How many times have you heard, “I went to a boxing match and a hockey game broke out?”

Boxing has seen its fair share of Jewish contenders and title holders. From Max Baer, and “Slapsy” Maxie Rosenbloom, to Al “Bummy” Davis, Dmitry Salita, and Yuri Foreman, to name but a few, death-due-to-body-contusion was – and for some still is – a possibility.

Each of these potentially deadly demonstrations exhibit the same basic philosophy: hit your opponent hard, draw blood, and may the better side be victorious. Even for the roosters this exact principle is true.

I learned quickly that there are three ways for a gamecock to be crowned victor: The opponent becomes scared and tries leaving the fight platform immediately; the opponent is mortally wounded by the end of the 15-minute bout; the victor is the only one still alive and clucking.

An older fellow I was sitting near, Julio Gomez, 81, told me in broken English, “The roosters are like prizefighters. Each one is carefully prepared for the fight. He gets trained, well treated and fed, and if he goes undefeated, he can make his owner a lot of money.”

Not to mention the fans.

Indeed, I would call the people who frequent these cockfighting arenas “fanatical” for the dying past-time. Betting is widely acceptable. A wager on a fight can range from $100 dollars to well over $2000. I understand why such an activity would be considered lamentable. But, why is it any different than boxing or martial arts combat?

As deplorable as cockfighting may be, it’s still held dear by traditionalists and purists alike. So is mixed martial arts. Just ask US senator John McCain. He was the first person to go on-record using the term “human cockfighting,” when campaigning to ban MMA from the United States.

Boxing, too, falls into this category. Although not having components of the US Congress actively seeking to end it with the vigor shared by McCain, boxing certainly isn’t absolved from the brutality both the victim and victor receive, as each fight poses many harms and risks. One punch to the head can end it all.

If you want to delve further into this conundrum, think of football or hockey as equivalent problem-ridden sports. The apocalyptic in me looks at the sporting future in North America devoid of contact sports, leaving only baseball and basketball to bask in athletic glory.

Unless the NFL and NHL both find that perfect equilibrium for controlled violence, these two beloved sports will soon serve only the proud and very few.

What I’ve come to realize with my experience at the cockfighting arena and the tradition that accompanies it, is that there are some things in life that stretch far beyond our grasp and understanding. There are things we experience in life that astound, and continue to amaze.

It’s almost as astonishing as a team trading away its career Jewish player for the sum of no parts; tradition notwithstanding.