14-Year-Old Little Leaguer Struck Out

Little League officials stripped star pitcher Danny Almonte and his Bronx Baby Bombers of their third-place World Series finish after officials confirmed Friday that Danny’s father falsified a birth document showing his son was 12, not 14.

The ruling voids the team’s entire storybook season, in which it became the first Bronx squad to reach the World Series. Officials also banned Bronx Little League founder Rolando Paulino and the boy’s father, Felipe de Jesus Almonte, from Little League altogether.

“Clearly, adults have used Danny Almonte and his teammates in a most contemptible and despicable way. Their actions are reprehensible,” said Little League President Stephen Keener, who blamed Paulino and Almonte for false documents that indicated the boy was eligible to play.

“We are certainly sad and angry that we were deceived. In fact, millions of Little Leaguers around the world were deceived,” Keener said.

The controversy has cast a shadow over this group of urban children--named the Baby Bombers after their New York Yankee Bronx counterparts--who almost beat the better-financed players from the suburbs.

The scandal, first reported by Sports Illustrated, is the worst for Little League since 1992, when the Philippines International team was found to be using ineligible players and a Long Beach team was declared champion.

Even President Bush, who attended the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa., said Friday that he was “disappointed” to hear that Danny had violated the league’s age limit. New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said in his weekly radio program Friday that he would withhold judgment of the boy.

Fans here Friday struggled to accept that the overachievers who became the pride of their Spanish-speaking neighborhood were the victims of foul play. “He’s still our baby--he’s always going to be our baby,” Miggie Collazo, a former Bronx coach, said of Danny Almonte.

The league’s ruling came after officials from the Dominican Republic said Felipe de Jesus Almonte had falsified his son’s birth certificate, said Manuel Ramon Morel Cerda, president of the Dominican Electoral Committee, which is in charge of most public records.

The Dominican government plans to charge the boy’s father with falsifying documents and was considering charges against the mother, Sonia Rojas Breton, Cerda told Associated Press. The Almontes could not be reached for comment Friday.

Little League rules prohibited any player born before Aug. 1, 1988, from competing this year.

Rojas Breton, who lives in the town of Moca, has a handwritten, photocopied birth certificate that indicates her son was born April 7, 1989. But Moca’s official records office has a birth certificate that indicats he was born April 7, 1987.

In a news conference Friday, Bronx league founder Paulino denied responsibility for the deception. “I believe in the [documents] parents give,” he said. “If there are any parents who lied to the league, that’s just not my problem.”

The league decided not to revoke the charter of the Rolando Paulino league in view of the opportunities it provides to Bronx youngsters.

Daryl Wasano, coach of the Oceanside, Calif., team that lost to the Bombers in the semifinals, said the revelation about Danny left him disappointed more for the team from State College, Pa., than for his own squad.

State College was eliminated by the Bronx, with Danny pitching, in the regional finals and did not travel to Williamsport.

Oceanside was eliminated when it lost, 1-0, to the Bronx with Danny pitching a one-hitter and striking out 16 of 18 batters. In their next game, the Baby Bombers lost to Apopka, Fla., in the U.S. finals.

“We had our dreams fulfilled, we got to Williamsport, but they [State College] were denied that opportunity and that upsets me,” said Wasano, a fishing tackle salesman. “Our kids had a great time, and they showed the country what they could do. That’s what really counts.”

During the tournament, Danny, a 5-foot-8, 116-pound lefthander, pitched the first perfect game in the Little League World Series since 1957--a record that will be wiped off the books--and allowed only one run all year.

The youth was so impressive that major leaguers Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey Jr. contacted him to wish him luck during the World Series. Many took to calling him the “Little Unit,” a variation on Johnson’s nickname.

But opposing coaches had questioned whether he was too old to be playing at the Little League level. “We saw a lot of pitchers who could throw in the mid-60s [mph], but when you see someone who is that much better and faster than everybody else, you think something must be wrong,” Wasano said.

But he refused to blame Danny. “It’s the adults who are responsible,” he said. “Danny seems like a great kid. I hope he does well in life.”

Oceanside Councilman Jack Feller, who accompanied the team to Williamsport, said the scandal “takes a little luster off the glow of everything. It’s a shame that any adult would stoop to this level to put a kid out there.”

Feller said the Oceanside players “probably feel a bit cheated, but they’re too classy to say so.”

Bronx fans said their team was being unfairly singled out. “This is all happening because our kids were Spanish and they got that far,” said Collazo, the former coach. “It isn’t fair.”

John King, a supporter whose father is a vice president of the Bronx league, said officials are trying to protect the boy from the intense media scrutiny.

“He looks numb,” King said of Danny Almonte. “He has to be hurt by all this negative attention. We’re definitely trying to keep it from him.”

Also Friday, New York City officials with the Administration for Children’s Welfare said they had determined that Danny did not attend school last year. “We’re treating that as a case of education neglect,” Jennifer Falk, a spokeswoman for the agency, told Associated Press.

Dean Szabo, a financial analyst whose son Wyley was the Oceanside shortstop, said he doubts his son and the others will be permanently scarred by their loss. “They know baseball sometimes isn’t fair. My son is just glad to be home again with his dog.”

At Glenroys Tavern in the South Bronx, a watering hole near Yankee Stadium that was one of the team’s biggest backers, regulars are stunned.

“Everybody is feeling bad about it,” said bartender Ceasar Arroyo. “We’re more worried about how this will affect the rest of the kids. Because now they all look bad. It’s sad.”

Asked about the scandal, Bush said: “I wasn’t disappointed in his fastball and his slider. The guy was awesome. . . . But I was sorely disappointed that people felt like they could send in a false age, particularly when it comes to Little League baseball, of all places.”

*

Glionna reported from New York and Perry from Oceanside.

*

RELATED STORY

First person: Little League scandal has a familiar ring to writer. D8