Glove-struck
Pitcher, 19, shamed in Little League flap,
is now married to an older woman - 30!
BY NICOLE BODE, JULIAN GARCIA, OREN YANIV,
TRACY CONNOR and LEO STANDORA
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Nineteen-year-old hurler Danny Almonte, famous for playing in Little League while ineligible due to age, now has 30-year-old wife. Little League scandal star Danny Almonte is really grown-up now - he's secretly married to a 30-year-old woman.
The 19-year-old pitcher, who hasn't even graduated from high school yet, reluctantly confirmed yesterday that he tied the knot with cradle-robbing Rosy Perdomo months ago.
"She's special," Almonte told the Daily News with a shy smile near the Bronx apartment he shares with Perdomo. "My family is happy for me."
The strapping young man wouldn't say much more about his bride, a former baseball league official who now works as a hairstylist in lower Manhattan.
"I don't want to talk about my personal life," he said politely, moments after he burst out of a barbershop when the question of his marriage came up.
But Perdomo told the Daily News she and Danny tied the knot at City Hall last Oct. 14 after both families showed "we have a lot of support from them."
She said she's known Almonte since his infamous Little League days.
"He always used to tell me things and I was like, 'You're a minor . . . we'd get in trouble," the pretty, freckle-faced bride said with a smile from a couch in the Bronx apartment she shares with Almonte.
"I really waited for the right person to come along," she explained, "so I wasn't going to just fool around, especially not with someone younger than me."
Perdomo said she and Almonte got closer last year and they began living together in June.
What makes it work?
"We share a lot," she said. "It's a family here. We have the same friends. We just have a lot in common."
Almonte's mom, Sonia Rojas, told The News from her home in the Dominican Republic that the May-December union has her blessing.
"Love has no age," Rojas said, bemoaning the fact that she couldn't obtain a visa to attend the nuptials in New York.
Five years ago, Almonte was being groomed as the greatest Little League star ever to emerge from the ballfields of New York. But his phenomenal run ended in disgrace when it was revealed he faked his age - subtracting two years - to play in the Little League World Series.
Still, he went on to become the ace pitcher on the Monroe High School team, was just chosen to play in a nationwide tournament, and is expected to be drafted by a Major League Baseball team next month.
In years past, Perdomo has been quoted in news accounts as Almonte's translator and as a parent in the Rolando Paulino All-Stars, the league Almonte played in.
More recently she was described as a founder or director of the FNHA, a Bronx-based youth league that replaced the All-Stars after it was disbanded amid the scandal.
Her cousin Johira Taveras, 19, said Almonte was a fixture at family gatherings before he married Perdomo.
"It was weird," Taveras said of the nuptials. "\[But\] you have to accept it. Everybody was happy for them. He's a nice boy."
Almonte was not wearing a wedding ring yesterday, but his wife said that might change now that their marriage has been made public.
Almonte also has a full scholarship waiting for him at New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs in case he doesn't get drafted.
His coach, Mike Turo, said U.S. citizenship is a requirement for the scholarship and that Almonte was planning to get a Social Security card this week.

Originally published on May 18, 2006