Danny Almonte started eighth grade yesterday, dodging threats of an after-school brawl and questions from students curious about the Bronx Baby Bomber who turned out to be a ringer.
Disgraced Little League coach Rolando Paulino escorted Almonte to MS 52 in the Longwood section of The Bronx, where the 14-year-old ran past reporters and slipped through a back door.
Almonte took a seat in a bilingual classroom where a teacher introduced him as “Jesus” – employing the first name on his much-contested birth certificate.
“He’s quiet, totally quiet; he didn’t speak at all,” said Randy Ramirez, 13, who’s in Almonte’s class.
But if he tried to keep a low profile, it didn’t work.
A crush of kids mobbed Almonte in the cafeteria as he ate his lunch.
“Everyone was surrounding him,” said eighth-grader Rondell Thomas, 13. “A whole bunch of girls were asking him questions.”
Officials in the Dominican Republic have charged Almonte’s father, Felipe, with doctoring his son’s birth certificate so that the boy could play as a ringer on the Rolando Paulino All-Stars team in The Bronx.
The Baby Bombers were stripped of their third-place win in the Little League World Series after a Dominican investigation found that Danny was two years too old to play on the team.
A police source said a band of eighth-graders threatened to beat the pitching ingenue in the schoolyard after the 3 p.m. bell.
Extra cops were assigned to the school to protect Almonte from bullies and shield him from the crush of media gathered at the edge of the playground.
After dropping Almonte off at school, Paulino held a press conference on the steps of the Bronx County Courthouse, where he and a lawyer hinted at a possible lawsuit against national Little League officials.
Paulino – who was barred for life from Little League – said he still plans to stay involved with the hundreds of kids on his Bronx teams.
“I’m going to die on a baseball field,” he said.