Danny Almonte was man enough to go to Hooters to celebrate his 17th birthday last month. “I liked it,” he says with a smile. Today he’s nearly 4 inches taller and throws 15 m.p.h. faster than he did when he pitched in the 2001 Little League World Series.
Almonte, now a sophomore at James Monroe Campus High School, is still remembered for the Little League scandal in which his father allegedly falsified his Dominican Republic birth certificate so he could pitch despite being two years older than the 12-year-old limit.
His team, the Rolando Paulino All-Stars–aka the Baby Bronx Bombers–was disqualified from its third-place finish in the Series. Stricken from the records were Almonte’s no-hitter in the regional final and perfect game in the World Series, the first in 44 years. In four Series games, he struck out 62 of 72 batters he faced, surrendering only three hits and one run.
Little League officials cleared the player of any wrongdoing but banned both his father, Felipe de Jesus Almonte, and league founder Rolando Paulino for life. Today, Danny Almonte hates to talk about the scandal. “I don’t care about it,” he says through an interpreter before taking the field for the Monroe Eagles, who are ranked No. 1 in the state. “I just play hard.”
But the talented left-hander, already named all-city as a pitcher and a first baseman in his freshman year, obviously does care. More than people know, his closest friends say.
“Sure, he cried,” says Monroe assistant coach Felipe Cordova. “He was lonely. He was like a lost kid without baseball. Honestly, from the bottom of my heart, he told me it wasn’t his fault. He just did what they told him to do.”
“I am not a liar,” Almonte says.
Tommy Guzman, a first baseman for Monroe and also a Little League teammate of Almonte’s, remembers how his friend suffered.
“He went through plenty of pain,” Guzman says. “Everyone was getting on him. But the players didn’t blame him. He really didn’t know. He just likes to play ball. Emotionally, he’s real quiet. I told him, `Don’t worry, there’s going to be bigger things in life.”‘
It appears so. Almonte now routinely throws in the mid-80s. This year his record is 5-1 with one save. His ERA is a stingy 1.22 and he has struck out 48 batters in 28 2/3 innings. He’s also batting .435 with a slugging percentage of .815. He has 36 RBIs in 30 games and has stolen 19 bases in 20 attempts.
“Major-league scouts see him, they fall in love with him,” Cordova says. “They love his mechanics and his maturity. They say they would take a chance on him right now.”
Almonte’s answers to the media are short.
“He’s been burned by the press, so he just decided to give yes and no answers,” Cordova says.
But Almonte says there were loads of life lessons learned for him.
“I feel now like I don’t trust everybody like I did before,” he says. “The people I trusted did me wrong. Out of the whole experience, the No. 1 thing [I learned] is to work hard every day.”
Almonte still lives with Paulino, his guardian, and trains like a man possessed. He runs up and down the 14 floors of his Bronx apartment building five times a day, three days a week. Alone.
Bona fide prospect
His father, who taught Danny to pitch in the dirt-poor town of Moca, returned to the Dominican Republic soon after the scandal. His son remained.
Danny survived his personal trauma and is emerging as a bona fide major-league prospect.
His coach, Mike Turo, has the 5-foot-11-inch, 150-pound Almonte on a weightlifting and weight-gaining program. He’s encouraging him to eat smashed plantains, Almonte says. The plan is working. Almonte has gained 25 pounds in the last year. The extra strength is registering on radar guns.
“His last start, he reached 87 on the gun 11 times,” Turo says. “By his senior year, he’ll be throwing in the 90s. Danny’s got great control and that ball moves out there.
“If he makes a mistake, he gets mad at himself. He’s very, very aggressive.”
Observers are also impressed by Almonte’s bat.
“He’s a good line-drive hitter,” Turo says. “He’s still kind of skinny, but he’ll fill out a little bit.”
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Enough to be a major-leaguer?
“That’s a tough call,” says Perry Pilagonia, an umpire with the Bronx Umpires Alliance. “I’ve seen kids be all-city and never make it. It’s a long hard road.”
Going forward
Almonte says his favorite teams are the Yankees, Red Sox and Cubs. His favorite pitcher is Pedro Martinez, his favorite player Ken Griffey Jr.
Why Griffey? Almonte was walking around outside the stadium in Williamsport, Pa., just as the controversy about his age was simmering. Suddenly he was called inside.
“One of the announcers handed me the phone and said, `Here, there’s somebody who wants to talk to you,'” Almonte says. “It was Griffey. In Spanish, he said, `Keep your head up. Go forward and don’t give up.'”
Almonte has done just that.
In a recent game against South Bronx High School, he demonstrates how he can look good even when he does badly.
In the fourth inning, he strikes out, but when the ball eludes the catcher, he hustles to first and beats the throw. He immediately steals second and a wild throw sends him to third. Then he scores on the back end of a double steal.
Almonte is no prima donna either.
When a teammate hits a foul ball into the adjoining playground, Almonte fetches it to save money for the baseball program. When Guzman doubles in a run in the bottom of the fifth to give Monroe a 10-0 win, he’s the first off the bench to congratulate his teammate.
“We’re like brothers,” Guzman says.
“This is my family,” Almonte says.
Turo treats him like a son.
“He has a childhood,” the coach says. “He’s great with kids, he loves PlayStation 2, baseball of course, and going to the mall. He calls his mother every day in the Dominican Republic.
“He talks to his mother, brother, and sister on a computer phone. I’m afraid to see the bill.”
Almonte’s English is much improved. He is enrolled at Monroe’s School of World Cultures, for students who have English as a second language.
Almonte says he doesn’t talk to his father, who brought him to the United States in 2000 and let him play baseball but not go to school.
Is he angry at him?
“Yeah,” Almonte says. “All-around reasons. He doesn’t call.”