Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Did Roberto Alomar play knowing he had HIV?

Well this is a bit of a shocker...

Former baseball great and one of the all-time second basemen in the game, Roberto Alomar, is being sued for 15 million dollars according to The New York Daily News.

The allegation? His ex-girlfriend is claiming that he insisted on having unprotected sex with her for 3 years without informing her that he was HIV positive. She has since been tested negative for the virus.

There's not much funny about this story, in fact the specific details of the allegation are pretty scary in how they detail Alomar's condition worsening over the past several years until he was finally tested positive for AIDS in 2006, so the suit alleges.

Alomar's agent has denied the allegations, saying that the claims are baseless and that Alomar's private life should stay private.

The most shocking part of the allegation is that according to the plaintiff, Alomar claimed he was raped when he was 17 years old by two Mexican men after a baseball game in a southwestern state and that is where he contracted the virus, meaning he played his entire career with it, knowingly or not.

Though HIV has never been transmitted through saliva, this does put Alomar's infamous 1996 umpire-spitting incident in a different light. John Hirshbeck, the umpire in question, was quoted last night as saying, "You're telling me something I'm shocked at. I wish him nothing but the best."

If the allegations are true and if Alomar played even a part of his career with the HIV virus or AIDS, this would be a huge story. While I would hope that we, as a society, are past the point where we are afraid of going near a person with HIV for fear of contracting the disease, there are certain precautions that must still be taken within a sports environment if a player on yours or another team is known to have the virus. The obvious first concern would be for the athletic trainers and doctors who might have worked on Alomar throughout his career.

While all this is obviously speculation at this point and the lawsuit is very fresh, it's still a scary thought.

Alomar was and remains to this day one of the greatest second basemen in the history of the game, but would have a lot of 'splainin to do if any of these allegations are proven true. Which they have not yet been in a court of law.

For all we know this could be nothing more than an angry ex-girlfriend trying to extort Alomar for a lot of money. I have a feeling we'll be hearing a lot more about this very soon...stay tuned.

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