The NFL's and NBA's fascination with dog fighting

Tipped off to this story from an interview with the SI author on Mike & the Mad Dog. It is horrifying.

"[Fighting dogs] is a fun thing, a hobby, to some [athletes]," says an NFL Pro Bowl running back who asked not to be named. "People are crazy about pit bulls. Guys have these nice, big fancy houses, and there is always a pit bull in the back. And everyone wants to have the biggest, baddest dog on the block."

Certainly most athletes who own pit bulls, a breed that's growing in popularity across the U.S., keep them strictly as pets. "People who don't know anything about pit bulls see one and immediately think people are fighting them," says Sean Bailey, a University of Georgia football player with a breeding operation in Alpharetta, Ga. "I breed blue pit bulls, and the 'gameness' dogfighters talk about has been bred out of them."

Still, HSUS officials, who pay for information that leads to a conviction, say they regularly get tips about athletes' participation in dogfights and pass leads on to local law enforcement. Two weeks ago John Goodwin, the HSUS's animal fighting expert, received a tip that a former NBA player ran a fighting ring in Virginia not far from Vick's property. "We hear about athletes all the time," Goodwin says.

"There's a fine line between having a dog as a macho display and having that animal display those characteristics in a fight setting," says Pacelle, the HSUS president. "Athletes get pulled into the subculture. These are competitive people. They are competitive on the football field and on the basketball court, and they get competitive about their dogs."

Or, as the Pro Bowl running back put it, "Sometimes you just want to see how tough a dog you got."

I had no idea this was so prevalent in the sports.

Michael Vick has already been convicted in the press for supposedly concealing pot in a water bottle which turned out to be bullshit (a verdict you almost never heard). But if you've got a dog fighting pit on your property there's no way you don't know about it. And it is a sick, sick thing.