Everyone knows that lies eventually come to light and bring with them extremely negative consequences: relationships, trust, careers, and friendships are all destroyed. This is a life lesson that former baseball player Danny Almonte learned the hard way. His moments of glory cost him a promising career, despite his undeniable talent and knack for baseball. What exactly happened? We’ll tell you in this article. Read more on i-bronx.
From the Dominican Republic to America
Danny Almonte Rojas was born on April 7 in the city of Moca in the Dominican Republic. We won’t mention his birth year just yet, as that very fact became the subject of a major baseball scandal in the Bronx during the 2001 Little League World Series.
Danny’s father was always passionate about baseball and instilled a love for the sport in his son. In 1994, he even founded a youth baseball league in his hometown in the Dominican Republic that still bears his name. But the family decided to immigrate to a country that could offer more opportunities for development and a successful life. When choosing a city in America, the elder Almonte didn’t hesitate; he immediately said he wanted to live in the Bronx and go to baseball games at the famous stadium of the legendary American team, the New York Yankees.
Read the article about the history of the new Yankee Stadium by following this link.
So, in 2000, the Almonte family moved to the Bronx. Almost immediately, before even deciding on a school, his father signed young Danny up for a baseball team, where he began to show significant success from the very first days.
An Amazing Performance in the 2001 Little League World Series
In 2001, Danny’s team, called the “Baby Bombers,” made it to the Little League World Series in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Thanks to his powerful hit and a fastball that reached 76 miles per hour (122 km/h), Almonte became a true sensation of the competition. To make an analogy to adult baseball, his hitting power was equivalent to 102 mph (164 km/h) in the Major League. This is an incredibly powerful result that not many athletes can boast of. Young Almonte’s height was also impressive at the time, standing at 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 m), especially considering that the other 12-year-olds on the field had an average height of about five feet. Danny’s impressive performances in 2001 earned him the nickname “Little Unit,” in contrast to Randy Johnson, who was known as “The Big Unit.”
Almonte’s most notable performance was in the game against Apopka, Florida. He didn’t allow a single base runner, starting the game with 15 consecutive strikeouts and finishing with a total of 16 strikeouts. The only non-strikeout hits came from Ryan Markell and Andrew Cobb, both of whom were knocked out at the beginning of the sixth inning. It was the first perfect game in the LLWS in 44 years.
However, his team lost to the same Florida team in the U.S. championship final. The main reason was that Almonte was ineligible to play in that game due to Little League rules, as he had already pitched a full game the day before.
In the end, Almonte finished the tournament with 62 strikeouts (out of 72 batters), allowing only three hits in three starts and one failed attempt.
All the sports journalists at the time wrote about the previously little-known “Baby Bombers.” The boys were honored before a New York Yankees game and felt like true baseball stars, shaking hands with famous athletes and Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Suspicions and Investigation
But the euphoria of victory didn’t last long for the Almonte family. Rumors quickly spread about a major deception within the championship children’s team. Danny Almonte’s overly mature appearance, as well as the impressive speed of his pitch, raised suspicions about whether he was truly 12 years old. It’s important to note here that 12 is the maximum age for participants in the Little League. Laterza from the New York Daily News said, “We had Jason Marquis in our Little League when he was 12, and his top speed was 65 miles per hour, maybe 67. So what Almonte was doing was physically impossible. But no one wanted to hear it. Everyone wanted a superhero, so they overlooked it.”
All the teams were then forced to conduct thorough checks, as there were similar suspicions about other boys who were too tall. The Staten Island team hired a private detective to verify the age of its players, and the New Jersey team conducted a similar investigation. However, neither of them found evidence that the players were older than their stated age. The league’s president, Rolando Paulino, insisted that Almonte was born on April 7, 1989, a fact confirmed by representatives of the Little League and the Dominican Republic.
But the inquisitive journalists couldn’t be stopped. Two weeks after the end of the 2001 series, Sports Illustrated reporters traveled to the civil registry office in Moca and found a record indicating that Felipe Almonte had registered his son’s date of birth as April 7, 1987, which meant he was 14 at the time of the series.
In the Dominican Republic, it was common to register birth certificates late. Children could be unregistered and without any documents for years. Danny’s mother, Sonia Rojas Breton, had a birth certificate that indicated he was born at home in 1989, but she only registered it in 2000, before traveling to America. Almonte’s parents claimed their son was born in 1989 and called the other documents fake. During the investigation, Felipe Almonte even appeared on “Good Morning America,” where he continued to defend his son and deny the accusations.
The Sensational Revelation
In the course of the investigation conducted by Dominican officials, Victor Romero, head of the national archives, interviewed witnesses whose signatures were on the 1989 birth certificate. They denied knowing Danny’s parents and said they had not signed the certificate. On August 31, Romero announced that Danny was actually born in 1987.
As a result, Danny Almonte was disqualified, his “Baby Bombers” team forfeited all their tournament victories, and their accomplishments were removed from the official records. Felipe Almonte was banned for life from Little League competitions and charged with document forgery. The league’s president, Paulino, was also disqualified. Danny, who at the time didn’t even speak English, had no idea about the fake documents, so no charges were filed against him. Jim Caple of ESPN called Felipe “the worst stereotype of a Little League parent come to life.” Later, Danny’s godmother apologized, explaining that they had to commit this small act of fraud to give Danny a chance to participate in an important tournament. But it turned out that these ambitious, selfish desires of the adults instantly took away a young athlete’s dream.
Almonte’s Later Baseball Career
After his father’s visa expired, Danny stayed in New York under the guardianship of Rolando Paulino. Along with four former teammates, he played in the Public Schools Athletic League championship in 2004, and for a time, he played for James Monroe High School in the Bronx.
During the National Amateur Baseball Federation (NABF) summer league, he played for a youth team. In October 2006, Almonte attended a Major League Baseball (MLB) tryout. Although there were rumors of him being a possible pick in the 2006 MLB draft, it didn’t happen.
Almonte couldn’t find his place and was constantly changing teams. After the draft, he announced that he would play for New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs. In 2007, his team made it to the National Junior College Championship. He then joined the Southern Illinois Miners in the Frontier League, which resulted in him losing his eligibility to play in the NCAA. In the fall of 2007, Almonte enrolled at Western Oklahoma College in Altus, where he played right field for the Pioneers. And even though he became one of the best players in junior college baseball with a .497 batting average, 14 home runs, and a 7-1 record as a pitcher, he was not selected in the MLB draft again.
In the summer of 2009, forced to give up pitching due to arm pain, Almonte played semi-professional baseball as an outfielder.
Broken Dreams
In 2010, Danny Almonte returned to the Bronx, where he volunteered as an assistant coach for his old high school baseball team. He had completely lost faith that he would ever play in the MLB.
Almonte’s story became the basis for the episode “Fraud” in the legal drama series Law & Order. He was also mentioned in the 17th episode of the 27th season of Saturday Night Live during the “Weekend Update” segment. The fateful episode was most thoroughly covered in the ESPN 30 for 30 short film “Kid Danny” in 2014. In that documentary, Almonte criticized both his coach and his father. He said, “The bad thing is that my coach Paulino and my dad knew what they were getting into. I wish it had never happened. But it happened to me, and only God knows what it did to me.”
Read about another Bronx baseball star in this article.