Edwin Diaz Cockfighting Report: What the USA Today Investigation Means for the Dodgers Closer
Edwin Diaz is having one of those weeks that no closer wants. A USA Today investigation has linked the Dodgers reliever to illegal cockfighting events in Puerto Rico, and the trail of evidence is more than a little uncomfortable for Los Angeles.
Per the report, promotional graphics for cockfighting tournaments featured an image of Diaz in his Dodgers uniform. A March story from El Nuevo Dia even quoted Diaz at a tournament where his family had four roosters entered. The line that is now making the rounds: “It is legal in Puerto Rico, thank God,” Diaz said in Spanish.
Here is the issue with that defense. It is not legal in Puerto Rico. Not since Congress amended the Animal Welfare Act in 2018 to extend the federal cockfighting ban to U.S. territories. That ban kicked in in December 2019. Diaz’s quote, charitably, is wrong. Read another way, it is something a federal prosecutor would underline.
Jockey brothers Jose Ortiz and Irad Ortiz Jr. were also named in the investigation. That is a triple-headline weekend for three high-profile athletes from the island. The optics are bad. The legal exposure is real. And the public relations problem now belongs to the Dodgers and Major League Baseball.
Diaz has not been charged with a crime. No discipline has come down from MLB or the team. His representatives have stayed quiet, which is the right call right now but a temporary one. The longer this hangs, the worse the questions get.
The Dodgers, meanwhile, are already dealing with a Diaz who is on the injured list and not pitching. Now they are dealing with a Diaz whose name is in a federal-statute conversation. There is no version of this where Andrew Friedman does not want a phone call by the end of the week.
The bigger question is how aggressive MLB wants to be. Commissioner Rob Manfred’s office has been historically slow to act on off-field investigations until charges materialize. The PED era trained the league to wait for formal proceedings. But the optics of a pitcher in uniform on cockfighting promo material? That is the kind of image that ends up on Capitol Hill in a hearing nobody wants.
For Diaz, the path forward is narrow. He needs to explain the appearances. He needs to explain the quote. He needs his team to back him publicly or he is going to be untouchable at the trade deadline, which is no small thing for a Dodgers franchise that built him into a reliever they could move if his stuff returned.
What we know for sure: this is not a story that disappears in 48 hours. Federal investigators, animal welfare advocates, and an MLB integrity office that has been quiet for too long are now all looking at the same set of photos. Diaz’s career did not need this. His team needed it even less.
Expect more reporting in the coming days. Expect a statement, eventually. And expect that whoever is advising Diaz right now is doing the hardest job in baseball this week.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
