Little League star may have been too old.

[jab1]

Fans of this year’s Little League World Series have heard about the phenomenal pitcher Danny Almonte, who was born in the Domincan Republic, but played for the Bronx. He pitched the first perfect game seen in the LLWS since 1957. He struck out the first 15 batters out of a possible 18. (LL games are only six innings.) He gave up ONE run for the whole season and it was unearned! He shows enormous promise as a baseball player. But there’s just one slight hitch:

LL players can be no more than 13 years old by August 1 of the year they play in the WS. But li’l Danny may already be 14.

Little League World Series officials were shown an affidavit Monday by a Sports Illustrated writer that indicated a Danny Almonte was born April 7, 1987, in the town (Moca, D.R.), said league spokesman Lance Van Auken.

Click here for full details. You also may want to check http://www.littleleague.org

[jab1]

Geez, I guess nobody cares.

[tiny_ham]

I DEFINITELY care. I was saying from the beginning that I thought that kid was too old to be playing. Admittedly, I thought he was older than he really is (Like 16 or 18), but still, I have been vindicated.

Corruption in New York…who woulda thunk it

[jk1245]

Nice to see the kids gettting an early start on cheating and winning at all costs, just like their big league couterparts.

I lay the blame for this on the parents and coaches more than the kid himself. I have coached peewee football for 3 years and umped little league for 4, and the parents routinely inspire homicidial rage.
This seems to be a recurring problem at the LLWS. Wasn’t an entire TEAM overage a few years back? You’d think they’d start checking a little closer.

[wring]

I care, I care.

(unrelated piece of trivia - my baby brother played in the little league World Series in - I think- 1973 )

[xizor]

Why would the kid want to hang around the little league longer than he had to? Why wasn’t he bumped up to the starting rotation for his varsity team or something? Reminds me of the scene from Billy Madison where Adam Sandler is playing dodge ball with a bunch of 3rd graders. Where is the pleasure in beating someone when there is no challenge involved?

[jab1]

Here’s more on the story. SI has a pretty good case. The only thing Almonte has going for him is this:

[Rolando] Paulino [team founder and a sportswriter for Noticias del Mundo, a Spanish-language newspaper based in New York City] pointed out that if Danny were 14, then he and his older brother, Juan, would be only six months apart. “So it cannot be true,” Paulino said. (SI did not locate a birth certificate for Juan.)

But if they find out that Juan is also older than he seems to be…

Mind you, I find it difficult to blame the kid in this. He was just following the lead of his authority figures.

As for previous trouble, in 1992, the champion team from the Phillippines had to forfeit because some of their players lived too far away from the town they were representing.

[screech-owl]

My question (and I have not yet heard a satifactory answer):

Forgive my ignorance here: Is he a resident of the U.S. or of the Dominican Republic, or is he a resident of both? He was here on a year-long visitor visa (which I understand expired) and yet he was considered a resident of New York?

By the way, on the news this morning - Universal Studios this evening is having a ticker tape parade for the kids from Apopka, then giving each team member and his immediate family lifetime passes to Universal Studios.

[jab1]

*Originally posted by screech-owl *
Is he a resident of the U.S. or of the Dominican Republic, or is he a resident of both? He was here on a year-long visitor visa (which I understand expired) and yet he was considered a resident of New York?

I’ve been trying to figure that out myself.

[jab1]

Here you go, screech-owl:

A U.S. official indicated that Danny Almonte’s visa had expired, and he “is no longer in the country legally.”

The boy came to the United States with his father, Felipe, on a standard B2 visa in June 2000. Normally, the U.S. Immigration and Nationalization Service allows a visitor with a standard visa to stay for six months. A six-month extension can be sought, for a maximum one-year stay.

But the U.S. official said an extension of Danny’s stay had not been sought, and the time that he “was legally permitted to stay in the country has elapsed.”

[doreen]

Forgive my ignorance here: Is he a resident of the U.S. or of the Dominican Republic, or is he a resident of both? He was here on a year-long visitor visa (which I understand expired) and yet he was considered a resident of New York?

According to the Little League officials I’ve seen quoted in the papers, it’s not the player who has to be a resident within the boundaries of the Little League, but a parent or guardian. I imagine it’s to allow a child who lives with his mother to play in the Little League covering his father’s residence, for example.

What I find more shocking even than a phony birth certificate (if there is one) is that the parents of another Little League spent $10,000 trying to dig up dirt on the Rolando Paulino players. It’s only a kid’s game, and no one’s going to get drafted based on how they played when they were eleven or twelve.

[doreen]

Forgot one point- the parent or guardian only has to be an actual resident, not a legal one, according to the quotes.

[jab1]

Almonte’s mom says, “He’s only 12.”

Along with the gold-plated baseball trophies and newspaper clippings about her son, Sonia Rojas Breton has a handwritten photocopied birth certificate that says he was born April 7, 1989. Ten blocks from her house, the town’s official records office has another birth certificate that says Danny was born April 7, 1987.

The handwritten hospital record, seen by an AP reporter on Wednesday, is in a tattered school notebook and lists the names of 30 other women who gave birth the same day. It is not notarized, nor is it signed by a hospital official.

Remember Danny’s brother Juan?

To further confuse things, an AP reporter was shown a birth certificate for Danny’s older brother. Danny’s mother says he is 14, but the birth certificate says he was born Dec. 15, 1985, making him nearly 16-years-old.

This is only speculation, but I think we may have here a case of a desperately-poor family who see a son with great athletic gifts as their only way out of poverty. They’re hoping he’ll be another Sammy Sosa or Pedro Martinez and make millions playing baseball. I actually feel as sorry for them as I do for Danny, because he probably IS their only way out of poverty. Desperation can make people do things they know are wrong.

[jab1]

They were supposed to announce the findings today. However:

Victor Romero of the public records office traveled to Almonte’s hometown of Moca, about 90 miles north of the capital, on Wednesday to try to determine whether the boy is 12 years old, the Little League limit, or 14.

He was expected to announce his findings Thursday, but the president of the registrar’s office never showed up.

But here’s something that may be even worse than lying about the boy’s age:

Danny Almonte hasn’t gone to school since coming to the United States 18 months ago, according to a report in Thursday’s edition of New York’s Daily News. Felipe Almonte told the newspaper his Dominican-born son “has been eating … and he has been playing ball.”

He did not study this past year because he was having trouble speaking English. So he wasn’t enrolled," the Daily News quoted de Jesus as saying.

Don’t they have Spanish-speaking teachers in NYC?

[jab1]

Forgot the link to the story.

[capacitor]

I have to say this much: the father has a lot of explaining to do: from mishandling the brother’s papers, to not havign Danny go to school other than to practice, to having sex with someone when she was, wow, 11 years old.

[jab1]

Are you saying Danny’s mother is only 23 or 25?!

[jab1]

Looks like my math was off. According to this story, her age is given as 28. So if Danny’s brother is really 16… :eek:

[Rilchiam]

What kills me is seeing that his league may lose their charter because of this. Can you say “ruining it for everyone”?

[jab1]

He’s 14. The Dominican government plans to charge his father for falsifying documents. I believe NYC could also charge him for not putting the boy in school. He could have been home-schooled, but he would still have to pass certain tests.

I don’t know why the league would have to disband, but if so, they could always start another one.