A Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher was linked to illegal cockfighting in Puerto Rico through social media posts, and the player at the center of the furor is three-time All-Star closer Edwin Díaz. Posts circulating online showed Díaz in his Dodgers uniform alongside material advertising cockfighting tournaments, including one that listed brothers Jose Ortiz and Irad Ortiz as participants in a 2025 event.
The social media posts landed on Thursday, when a Los Angeles Times report said Díaz and the Ortiz brothers were allegedly connected to illegal cockfighting in Puerto Rico. The timing gave the story fresh force because the Dodgers signed Díaz to a three-year, $69 million contract in December 2025 and announced last month that he was having surgery to remove loose bodies in his right elbow, a setback that will keep him out until the second half of the season.
Díaz, who was quoted in an El Nuevo Día article in March, did not hide his long association with the tradition. He said cockfighting was a pastime he had followed since he was a child and said he was attending a tournament in which his family entered four roosters. “It’s legal in Puerto Rico, thank God. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here,” he said, adding, “It’s something I’ve done since childhood, something my dad instilled in me.”
The Ortiz brothers were pulled into the issue separately. A Facebook post by Club Gallistico de Puerto Rico on Dec. 17, 2025, pictured Irad Ortiz and Jose Ortiz and listed them as participants in a cockfighting event. The post said the brothers excel in international horse racing but also have a passion for cockfighting, and it quoted the club saying, “Brothers Irad and José Luis Ortiz accepted the challenge of participating in the ‘Caribbean Grand Champion’ tournament with a single goal: to become undisputed champions.” Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming launched an investigation after receiving reports that the two were taking part in a cockfighting event, and stewards met with both men during the inquiry before electing not to take administrative action.
The dispute reaches far beyond one clubhouse post or one baseball player. Cockfighting has long been described as a cultural tradition and a massive industry in Puerto Rico, even as it has created tension between the island and the federal government. A federal law banning cockfighting took effect in Puerto Rico in 2019, after the territory had allowed the practice under its own rules as long as animals, goods or services tied to cockfighting were not exported or imported. The U.S. Supreme Court declined in 2021 to hear a challenge to that federal ban.
That history is what gives the new allegations their edge. Díaz is now facing public scrutiny not just as a prominent Dodgers pitcher, but as someone who has openly described cockfighting as part of his upbringing. The unresolved question is less about whether the practice still has support in Puerto Rico than how long major sports figures can remain tied to it before those links start to carry consequences of their own.
