Youth Sports: No Tears For Almonte

By Stephen Baker CPKSports.com Senior Writer

I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear that I should save my bile and condemnation for million dollar athletes. I don't want to hear that this is a result of jealous parents. I don't want to hear how this is so unfair to a poor kid. Danny Almonte cheated, and he should be punished accordingly.

I can't put my finger on why I am so angry over a 14-year-old kid pretending he's 12, so he can play Little League Baseball. Danny and his father perpetrated a fraud, and they reaped rewards for it: national exposure, a key to the city, even a chance to meet the New York Yankees. Crime pays.

Cheating is wrong. It's wrong if you're 30. It's wrong if you're 14. Fraud is a crime. It's a crime if you're 30; it's a crime if you're 14. Does Almonte deserve villainy and infamy? Sure, he benefited from his fraud, so now he must also pay for his crime. And that's what it was, a crime.

His father came to this country, and didn't even bother to send his child to school. Exactly what is the point of coming to the Land of Opportunity if you don't take advantage of that opportunity? He also has an expired visa, and even more damning, according to the Dominican Republic, Danny didn't attend school there either.

Are his teammates victims? Sure, they weren't complicit. They did, however, get some pretty cool memories out of the whole thing. They also got keys to the city; they also got to meet the Yankees. Their wins may have been stripped and their records purged from the records, but they will keep the memories of these last few weeks forever. They will always have a dark cloud, but they did have a once-in-lifetime experience. They can't erase their memories.

The biggest losers are the teams who lost to the mini-Bombers. Some team from New York lost the chance to win their state title. They lost the chance to make a magical run through the tournament, but we never had a chance to see them. And that's a real shame.

Little League baseball will survive. The town of Williamsport will give us all a whole slew of new memories to cherish in the coming years. There will be a whole new series of kids, a whole new group of teams. The slate will be washed clean. I can hardly wait.

Article courtesy of CPKSports.com