Blue Jays icon Roberto Alomar breaks silence on baseball ban

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PALM BEACH GARDENS, FLA. — Five years after being banished from baseball, Roberto Alomar has broken his silence, claiming he has done nothing wrong and there is no need for him to apologize.

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In an exclusive interview with The Toronto Sun, a calm but clearly frustrated Alomar insists that he is not guilty of sexual misconduct of any kind and should never have been banned from Major League Baseball.

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“They said I did this, they said I did that,” the 58-year-old Alomar said. “They said a lot of things. I said ‘Prove it to me.’ They went and did an investigation. I have to be careful here about what I say and how I say it.

“I said ‘What proof do you have?’ They never told me.

“You walk around Toronto now there’s no story out there. Nobody knows the story. I don’t know. You don’t know. They just told me that we have to do this.

“If I did something wrong, I’d take my name down (from Level of Excellence) myself. But I haven’t done anything wrong.”

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Sources close to Major League Baseball claim that MLB, and by extension the Blue Jays, all but forced him into signing an agreement, matching MLB’s payment to a female complainant of $500,000 US and also claim MLB all but forced him into signing a non-disclosure clause, which has kept him uncomfortably silent all these years.

He’s still unsure and not fully understanding of what he can and cannot talk about regarding his lifetime suspension.

‘They made me pay. They forced me.’

“They bullied me,” Alomar said. “They say you have to match (our payment). I said, ‘What did I do? Show me what I did.’ I didn’t want to pay. They made me pay. They forced me.

“My lawyer told me, if you go to court (against this woman), it could wind up costing you $2-3 million in legal fees just to fight this and this could last 10 years. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t afford to do that. I didn’t have that kind of money. I don’t have that kind of money.”

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The female complainant who worked in the baseball industry, possibly for the Blue Jays, reported Alomar for sexual misconduct in 2014. Years later, after a lawsuit was filed against baseball, MLB conducted an independent investigation under its policies.

The investigation — Alomar believes there were three of them — led commissioner Rob Manfred to conclude that Alomar had violated their policy and the conduct was serious enough for the lifetime punishment of banishment from baseball.

Both commissioner Manfred and Jays president Mark Shapiro were approached to be interviewed for this story. Manfred never responded to requests. Shapiro chose not to comment, indicating the legal process and the non-disclosure agreement made it impossible for him to do so. Manfred’s deputy commissioner, Dan Halem, handled the Alomar situation for MLB.

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Alomar said he has never read any of the investigation reports.

“They said I had to pay (half of the $1 million paid to settle the case against baseball). I didn’t want to pay. They made me pay. They said they’d go after me if I didn’t pay. Remember, I’m not an American. I don’t understand all this legal stuff. All I know is I never did whatever they say I did with this girl. I knew her.

“I saw her for 10 minutes (that night). She went to bed. That was it.”

Is Alomar still welcome at Rogers Centre?

Alomar remains among the most decorated players in the history of the sport and certainly the history of Toronto sport. While no longer on the Jays Level of Excellence and all but written out of Blue Jays history, he remains in the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, the Puerto Rican Baseball Hall of Fame and the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame, where he played just three seasons for the O’s.

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The Hall in Cooperstown would not remove his name because his lifetime suspension came after his playing career had ended. His Hall of Fame induction was based solely on his playing days.

It hurts Alomar to this day that he’s no longer recognized by the Blue Jays, no longer welcome in the stadium, not considered worthy of being honoured in this 50th season of Blue Jays baseball. It also hurts him that if someone walks into the Blue Jays store at the Rogers Centre and asks for a Number 12 jersey with Alomar’s name on the back, they will be told it is not available.

Alomar still spends a great deal of his time in Toronto. He has a daughter here. He has an annual golf tournament in Hamilton. But he no longer runs his youth development camps or tournaments around the Jays or spends any time with their minor-league players as he once did. Prior to his banishing on April 30, 2021, he worked part-time for the Jays and part-time for MLB.

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“I’m going to be a Blue Jay for life,” Alomar said. “That’s how I feel. I don’t care what they say about what happened. To me it’s not the fans saying it. People seem to love me in Toronto. Sometimes they ask me ‘Roberto what happened? We don’t know.’ There’s no story out there. People don’t know why I got suspended.

“Do you know? Nobody knows. Not even me.”

What does Alomar think of Mark Shapiro?

Alomar does hold a grudge of sorts against Blue Jays president Shapiro, who he first got to know when he played for what was then the Cleveland Indians. He doesn’t believe Shapiro supported him in any way through the baseball investigations in Toronto.

Without saying it in so many words, Alomar believes he was found guilty without a trial. A transgression he doesn’t believe he committed and one the court of public opinion remains uncertain about because of the secretive nature of the baseball investigations. The investigations have never been made public. The facts in the case have never been challenged.

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“Toronto never turned their back on me,” Alomar said. “Only one person turned their back on me and that’s Mark Shapiro.

“If you go back, I never saw eye-to-eye with him from Day 1 in Cleveland. I signed to play there for four years. I bought a house. My brother (Sandy) was there. It was one of the greatest times of my life. Sandy was going to be a free agent and Mark became GM and asked me if I was OK if my brother leaves. I said I’m happy here, I just had my best year as a player. We have a good team. I’ve got Omar (Vizquel) at shortstop.

“He said ‘Good, we want to build around you.’

“Two days later I was traded to the Mets. He didn’t call me to tell me I was traded. I found out from a radio guy. Then my agent called. Mark never called. He never shook my hand. That was the last time I spoke to him before he came (to the Jays).”

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Long after that, Shapiro called the trading of Alomar to be the worst deal of his career.

An external law firm not associated with baseball conducted the Alomar investigation for MLB and concluded that he had violated MLB policies and should be permanently terminated.

Commissioner Rob Manfred agreed.

“I would love to talk to him (Manfred),” Alomar said. “I did talk for a brief time after he made the decision. I’d like to talk one more time. I’d tell him what I’m telling you. That I didn’t do anything wrong. I know I haven’t done anything wrong.

“I asked my lawyer, what did they have on me? He said they believed her story more than they believed yours. That was what it came down to.”

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Without any kind of trial, Alomar was found guilty by baseball and also by the Blue Jays.

“We built something special here,” Alomar said. “There was a lot of respected people before we got here. People like George Bell. They started it and we put together a legacy. It started in Oakland with the home run. The kind of legacy they’re honouring this season.”

What is Alomar’s on-field legacy?

Alomar played five seasons for Toronto, made the playoffs three of four concluding seasons, won two World Series. After Alomar left, the Jays didn’t make the playoffs for the next 19 seasons.

He then went to Baltimore for two seasons, both times making the playoffs. The Orioles hadn’t made the post-season in 14 years before Alomar and didn’t make it for the next 12 seasons after he left. He had a deep effect on Major League teams in his 17-year career.

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Now he’s out of North American baseball completely, although he’s involved the Puerto Rican League with the Senadores de San Juan, the club he owns.

And he agreed to this interview, after being asked for a number of years, primarily because of his love of Toronto.

“I wanted to see a nice story about Toronto,” he said. “I miss Toronto. I miss being in the ballpark.

“Over the years I’ve gotten calls. From Devo (Devon White), from Cito (Gaston), from Kelly Gruber, from Juan Guzman and George Bell. They just said they supported me. They didn’t ask a lot of questions. I didn’t talk to a lot of people about this because I don’t talk to a lot of people.

“Nobody asked me what happened. They just supported me. There’s no story out there. There’s never been a story out there … This is so damn disappointing.”

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