Danny Almonte Biography

Danny Almonte was a New York Little League baseball player from the Dominican Republic who made headlines in 2001: first for being an outstanding pitcher, then again when it was revealed that he was 14 years old, well over Little League’s 12-year age limit.

Danny Almonte was a left-handed pitcher for the 2001 Rolando Paulino All-Stars, a Little League team of mostly Latin players from the Bronx, New York. The team made it to that year’s Little League World Series, where Almonte’s 70 MPH pitches made him nearly unhittable; on August 18, 2001 he pitched a perfect game against Apopka, Florida, striking out the first 16 of the 18 batters he faced. His team became media darlings and earned the nickname “Baby Bronx Bombers.”

But: After the tournament ended, a Sports Illustrated reporter found documents in the Dominican Republic suggesting that Almonte was born in 1987, not 1989, making him two years too old to compete in Little League. Investigations by Little League and Dominican officials found that Almonte’s father had registered the boy’s birth twice, shaving two years off his age with the second registration.

Little League erased Almonte and his team from the tournament records, and banned Almonte’s father from Little League activities for life.

Almonte went on to play for New York’s James Monroe High School, where he helped win two championships in 2004 and 2005. After playing briefly for a pro team, the Southern Illinois Miners, he attended and played ball for the junior college Western Oklahoma State. An arm injury kept him from playing after that and he became an assistant coach at a school in New York.