Adults ruin summer's best story.(Little League)(Brief Article)

We're always searching for the joy in sports, the glee of competing, the fun etched in an athlete's face. And yet when we finally discover this rare rapture, in the name of 12-year-old Danny Almonte, what inevitably happens?

The adults ruin everything for the kid.

There was the dazzling pitcher from the Dominican Republic, wowing his adopted America with a 70-mph heater and look-at-me smile, luring the masses for reasons not complicated. Face it, people are weary of the ills in pro and college sports and embrace the supposed escapism of a Little League World Series. The more Almonte ruled the landscape--pitching a perfect game one day, striking out 16 batters and throwing a one-hitter days later--the louder the national buzz boomed. Have we ever seen a child with such control and poise?

"It's like he's been playing ball since he was born," said his father, Felipe, who two years ago brought Danny to live with him in New York.

Alas, the story couldn't be left at that. All the kid wanted to do was pitch, as he did on the tattered ballfields of his native land, throwing wadded-up objects at batters holding broomsticks. But as the biggest hero of the Rolando Paulino All-Stars in the South Bronx, he now was an item for public consumption. Suddenly at his door were vultures, either wanting something from him or suspicious his tale was too good to be true.

Nothing is wrong with airing the Little League games from lovely Williamsport, Pa., as networks have done for years. It's another matter entirely when a profit-bloated sports operation sells a 12-year-old, pumping him the way Hollywood exploits child stars who sometimes aren't prepared emotionally. Since when should a kid pitcher, who isn't being paid a cent, be marketed like Drew Barrymore and Macaulay Culkin? As the owner of ESPN and ABC, which televised the weekend title round, shouldn't Disney know better? With the same cool he shows on the mound, Almonte tried to ignore the commotion.

"I don't think about the media or the television," he said. "I just focus on pitching and playing ball."