Concerns About Age
Danny's imposing appearance and command on the mound, as well as the velocity of his fastball, led to rumors that he was more than 12 years old. A team from Staten Island hired a private investigator to look into the ages of the entire team. A similar investigation was conducted by a team from Pequannock Township, New Jersey. Neither turned up any evidence that the players were too old. Rolando Paulino, the league president, adamantly insisted that Danny had in fact been born on April 7, 1989. Paulino was initially backed by Little League and Dominican officials, who said the Baby Bombers had followed all proper procedures regarding age verification. Officials at Little League headquarters even took the unusual step of checking each of the player documents due to the rumors surrounding the team. Little League officials had increased scrutiny of player eligibility after the 1992 Series, in which the champions from Zamboanga City in The Philippines were stripped of their title due to a large number of out-of-district and overage players.
Sports Illustrated reporters went to the civil records building in Moca two weeks after the end of the Little League World Series. They discovered a notation in the birth ledger showing that in 1994, Felipe Almonte had registered his son's birth date as April 7, 1987 at Dr. Toribio Bencosme Hospital. It is very common for Dominican parents to wait years before registering the birth of a child.
Their report, posted on the magazine's web site just before being published, triggered a full investigation by Little League, even as Almonte and his teammates were being feted in the Bronx. His mother, Sonia Rojas Breton, owned a handwritten birth certificate saying that he had been born at home in Jamao with the help of a midwife in 1989. She had registered Danny's 1989 birth date in 2000.
Both of Almonte's parents, though separated, insisted their son was born in 1989, condemning the other documents as false. Felipe Almonte appeared on Good Morning America at the time of the investigation, proclaiming his son's innocence.
Read more about this topic: Danny Almonte
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