Stardate 20010831.1440 (On Screen): The miracle pitching performance
by Dannie Almonte in the Little League World Series has become much more understandable: he's two years older than he was permitted to be in order to legally compete. Worse, he's here illegally, and he seems not to be attending school even though anyone that age is required to do so. In the Dominican Republic, where he's from, baseball is seen as a way of escaping from poverty (the way that basketball is seen in some American Black communities). I venture to guess that this is the reason his father did all these things -- to get Danny into pro sports. It's sad that it's come to this, but it makes his performance much more understandable. The age cutoff for Little League was carefully chosen carefully to take place before the physical changes associated with puberty.
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