John Montgomery  Presents This Week's Creep Logo by Lynn Kauczka

The Dominican Little League Creeps I'm Not a 12-Year-Old But I Play One on TV

It seems like a very long time ago (and it was) that I played Little League baseball. We won some, we lost some. I do remember a few hyperactive coaches and obnoxious parents who were considerably more immature than their kids, but mostly we just played baseball. One time there was a close play at the plate where a kid got hit in the stomach with the ball and then puked on the umpire's shoes. We all cheered and the umpire got pissed and threw the entire team out of the game. That was as scandalous as Little League ever got back in those days of innocence. The story didn't even make it to ESPN SportsCenter.

It's a bit more complicated now.

This week, Little League Baseball ruled that the Rolando Paulino All-Stars, a team from the Bronx in New York, had to forfeit all their victories for the season, including their third-place finish in the Little League World Series. It turns out that Danny Almonte, the team's star pitcher, who pitched four victories in the series, including a perfect game, and struck out 62 of the 72 batters he faced, is actually 14 years old, two years older than the maximum Little League age limit of 12.

How'd Danny sneak in? The same way he'll be sneaking into bars someday: a fake ID. Back in the Dominican Republic, where Danny was born, his father, Felipe de Jesus Almonte (very cool name!), apparently registered the birth twice, once showing Danny's real birth date in 1987 and another, registered shortly before they moved to New York to play baseball, showing a birth date of 1989.

Once Danny started pitching for the Rolando Paulino team, rumors about his age began almost immediately. His poise on the mound and overwhelming talent sparked the first suspicions. Later on, some observers wondered why Danny was 6'2", smoked Dominican cigars, and had a mustache, hairy chest and three kids.

The Little League officials and coaches had stock answers for the complaints: racism and jealousy. Lance Van Auken, Little League director of media relations, said, "There have been better pitchers here. The difference is, most of them have been white." Rolando Paulino himself, who founded the league Danny played in pointed out that, "Most of those people are bad losers, poor sports. No other team, not even those from abroad, has been scrutinized like us. Do you know what envidia means? Celos?" No Rolando, is that Spanish for "Egocentric, manic adult taking advantage poor, ignorant immigrant kids"?

Things got so bad that the parents of one of the other teams, the South Shore All-Stars from Staten Island, paid a private detective $10,000 to investigate the ages of the Bronx players. The detective didn't find any proof of Dominican funny business. Those parents ought to send some barrio boys over to talk to the detective because they've been suckered twice now.

Not only did we find out Danny's a big boy, we also found out he hasn't been to school in the 18 months he's been in the United States and doesn't speak any English, either. When they asked father Felipe de Jesus just what the hell Danny's been doing all that time, he said, "He has been eating — and he has been playing ball." Another dumb, overweight jock in the making to fill up our future sports pages and jail cells.

George W Bush, former baseball team owner, shone his own intellectual brilliance on the story:  "I'm disappointed that adults would fudge the boy's age. I wasn't disappointed in his fastball and his slider."  Later George wondered why they couldn't figure out Danny's age by simply cutting him in half and counting the rings.

Felipe de Jesus received a lifetime ban from any involvement with Little League and Rolando Paulino got suspended "indefinitely." Most people believe Danny was the innocent victim in this tawdry tale, but I don't buy it. When you're fourteen, you know a few things about right and wrong. You surely know how old you are. Even an incubating dumb jock with no schooling knows how old he is. In George Bush's Texas, you're eligible for the death penalty at about that age.

So spare me the "evil adults corrupting the angelic athlete" story, Danny. Spit out that tobacco, get into school, and learn enough English to do the TV commercials you're going to need to make a living after your baseball career goes down the tubes. And if you want to practice your pitching, bounce a few 75-mile-per-hour fast balls off your dad's head.