Sunday, September 02, 2001
Walk a mile in Almonte's shoes
Of course, Felipe Almonte should have enrolled his son Danny in school instead of allowing him to concentrate on sports. What did he want Danny to become ... an NBA star?
Felipe is not a Hall of Fame father. June won't be keeping the meat loaf warm for him. Felipe lied about his kid's age. He brought Danny from the Dominican Republic a year and a half ago and never enrolled him in school. He didn't send him back when his visa expired.
We have this problem now. The best player in Little League is too big. Danny Almonte isn't 12. He's a bit older than that, so now everyone's bemoaning the immorality of it all.
But here's the thing: The Almontes are not from some leafy suburb where the ice cream truck makes regular stops and every kid has a clean uniform for every game.
A good thing about the American Dream is every one can have one. They can all be different. The dream of Danny Almonte and his father is for Danny to pitch in the major leagues and make millions
of dollars. That we should be concerned about the kid's schooling is our problem, not his.
Don't lose perspective
Spare us, too, the outrage of people like Stephen Keener, Little League Baseball's president, who said, “Clearly, adults have used Danny Almonte and his teammates in a most contemptible and despicable way.”
Right you are, Steve. Now, get off your high donkey and tell all the TV networks to stop showing your business's ballgames in prime time.
A national magazine dispatched a reporter to the Dominican to check out Dan ny's birth certificate. Parents from defeated teams hired Magnum or somebody to see if the kid was a ringer. ABC covered the championship game like it was the seventh game of the World Series.
These were ... 12-year-olds.
When it comes to sports, we've been around the bend for a long time.
Jose Rijo understands about Felipe and Danny Almonte. He grew up in the Dominican town of San Cristobal, with corns on his feet because his family couldn't afford shoes that fit. On the days he could come up with an actual baseball — instead of rolled-up socks or knotted rags — Rijo skipped school to play ball.
After the eighth grade, his grandfather asked him a pointed question:
“School or baseball?”
School was not free, and Rijo's mother was not going to work to pay for it if her son was not interested.
“Baseball,” Rijo answered. Why wouldn't he?
Dominican boys don't go to sleep at night dreaming of being Dr. Kildare. There isn't a chemistry book beneath their pillows, if they have pillows, which sometimes they don't.
“They don't see what you see here, all the opportunity. They see everyday on TV Sammy Sosa, Moises Alou, Pedro Martinez, Jose Rijo. They don't see too many commercials of doctors or lawyers in the Dominican,” Rijo said.
Dad meant well
The New York Times says Felipe Almonte works in a bodega. In Felipe's world, a bodega is a corner grocery store that gets robbed a lot. The good people of the neighborhood go there to buy milk and bread. The bad people go to partake of the cash register.
Compared to his prospects in the Dominican, Felipe might consider himself blessed. But he wants more for his kid. Don't we all?
He went about it all wrong, no doubt. But before we hang him in judgment, maybe we should consider where he came from. And where we're going.
You'd have to be from another planet to miss the overemphasis on sports here. You'd have to be from another generation or three to remember when it wasn't this way.
School teachers are lucky if they make $50,000. Major leaguers make $2 million, on average. Danny Almonte throws 74 mph at age 14. No wonder he isn't going to school.
Jose Rijo never got past the eighth grade. He was drafted to play baseball at age 15. He seemed to do OK.
E-mail: pdaugherty@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/daugherty.
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DAUGHERTY: Walk a mile in Almonte's shoes
