BENBROOK, Texas -- Two teenagers kicked off their Texas high school's baseball team after apparently sacrificing chickens in a bid to boost its performance were facing animal cruelty charges Friday, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.
The students, who are aged 15 and 16 but remain unnamed, were suspended from playing for the rest of the year and disciplined by the Western Hills school officials amid claims that they decapitated baby chicks on a baseball field during spring break.
Benbrook Police sergeant John Van Ness said that officers were alerted to the killings, which apparently occurred on the school's baseball field March 17 and 18, by officials from the Fort Worth school district.
The Tarrant County Juvenile Court would decide whether to prosecute the two players, he said, adding that the animal cruelty charge the teenagers face is a state jail felony, carrying a maximum two-year jail sentence and a fine of up to $10,000.
Police confirmed the players were "engaged in acts that caused the death of two baby chickens. It appears that superstition relating to a slump in baseball performance could have played a part."
Western Hills baseball coach Bobby McIntire said he did not know why the students would behave in such a way but guessed that they were influenced by similar scenes of sporting sacrifice in baseball films "Major League" and "Bull Durham," in which the bloody ritual was referenced as a way of beating a slump in form.
"Baseball is very superstitious, and I assume [the movies] are where they got it from," McIntire said.
The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) urged the school's administrators to establish an animal rights club on campus and offered to help educate students.
"It's necessary to address problems like this," said PETA educator Elizabeth Graffeo. "The alleged killings of chickens in this way can't go without [a] message from school. It is important that animals must be treated with compassion."
