I'm going to do us all a favor and head off the Michael Vick apologists that are going to come out of the woodwork today - you'll thank me later.  No matter what happens with Pedro Martinez, Vick deserved his sentence and impending NFL suspension for dog fighting, and it was worse than what Pedro is going to go through.

For those of you unfamiliar with the situation, Foxsports.com is reporting that a video surfaced on Youtube last night, which showed Pedro and Hall of Fame pitcher Juan Marichal at a cockfight in the Dominican Republic.  The two "...took part as honorary 'solutadores' - the word used to describe the person who throws the animal into the ring."

Marichal is renowned in his home country for raising fighting roosters on his farm, and apparently Pedro is doing the same on his own property.

So now everyone is going to be up in arms over this, and PETA is going to be calling for Bud Selig to suspend Pedro until the end of time, and the Vick supporters are going to scream that he should be thrown in jail, and use Vick's incarceration as "proof" that racism must have been involved there.

Well, I hate to tell you, but nothing's going to be - nor do I think should be - done to Pedro.  Why?  Because in the Dominican Republic, cockfighting is...umm...what's the word I'm looking for...LEGAL!!!

Understand that this is not an advocation of any sort for cockfighting; it should offend and sicken you.  But like it or not, in the D.R. it's legal, and it's part of their culture, and no matter how warped and disgusting we here might find it, he hasn't broken a single law.

Now I'm sure that the Vick supporters will immediately argue that dog fighting is part of the African-American culture in the South, and if it's ok for Pedro to claim something is part of his culture then Vick should be able to do so as well.  Again, this might be part of their culture, but dogfighting is illegal in the U.S., and if you break the law, you go to jail.

I don't even pretend to be able to grasp how watching dogfights or cockfights is enjoyable, but if we're going to start going after people over what's accepted practice in their own country, we'd better be prepared to spend a lot of time on the whole process, as well as getting some grief thrown that way.  Take, for instance, any Korean player in MLB.  They've probably eaten dog before, that's standard fare in Korea.  Are we going to go after them because we find it disgusting?  How would we react if American golfers or tennis players weren't allowed to compete in tournaments in India because they've eaten cow before?

So before we go off comparing the two cases, let's think about it for a minute, and then not do it.  Hate Pedro for what he did if you want, that's your right.  But let's not try and justify any sort of linkage between the two cases.  One was legal, one was not, and that ought to be the end of it.