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Aramis Ramirez: Definitely Dominican

Feb 19, 2008 – 2:40 PM
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Eamonn Brennan

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It's old news now: Pedro Martinez and Juan Marichal show up on some bootleg cockfighting video; Martinez and Marichal take their PR hits, PETA promises a protest, and everyone moves on. It's like clockwork.

But then Aramis Ramirez had to go and up the ante. Who needs to get caught at a cockfight when you can say you're "totally dedicated" to your roosters (they are roosters, right)? Now Ramirez is not only a cruel byproduct of the Dominican's love for the bloodsport, he's the Mickey to his roosters' Rocky. So the requisite grilling came, but not really -- turns out people don't care nearly as much about animals if they're not cute and cuddly. And Ramirez effectively dodged the questions today:
"I'm not going to let you finish the question,'' when the subject of his recently publicized and criticized involvement in Dominican cockfighting was raised. ``I'm not going to talk about that. That's personal. It's a different culture down there. I'm from the Dominican, so let's talk about baseball."
And that's that. I'm not sure what being from the Dominican has to do with one's desire to talk about baseball, but there you have it. Aramis Ramirez: from the Dominican. I'm glad we cleared that up.
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