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Byrd reportedly bought $25K worth of HGH

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It was 4 days ago that we wrote about Sam Alipour’s interview with Cleveland Indians pitcher Paul Byrd that ran on ESPN.com. In the story, Byrd talked about his struggle to stay true to his Christian faith despite the pressures of the ballplayer lifestyle that included pornography, cheating by scuffing the ball, and the availability of performance-enhancing drugs.This morning, the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that between August 2002 and January 2005 Byrd purchased nearly $25,000 worth of Human Growth Hormone, including more than 1,000 vials of HGH and hundreds of syringes.According to the SF Chronicle article, Byrd made 13 purchases in total over the 30 month period, the last purchase coming just one week before baseball formally banned the use of HGH on January 13, 2005.Revisiting Alipour’s piece for a moment, Byrd commented on PEDs, saying:

“Religion can go over into every area, like whether I should cheat out on the field. I write about the desire to just make money at any cost. I share about my temptation to spit on the ball, put KY jelly on it or scuff it, to win more games and make more money. That’s a big temptation for me, being a guy who throws 82, who relies on movement. You have a pull, because you have a certain window up here that stares you in the face. Are you willing to take steroids? Because that’s available. People viewed that as me being weak. Like, ‘This guy doesn’t want to win.’” 

According to Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, the writers who penned the SF Chronicle piece, “Byrd has never commented on athletes’ use of growth hormone, but he has publicly denied using steroids and said he believes they pose a problem for baseball. He also has said baseball’s problem with performance-enhancing drugs is not nearly as serious as critics say.”

As the story develops we’ll have more to say about it, but for now here’s my initial thoughts (I’m headed out the door for the day):

Paul Byrd screwed up. He joins the list of Christians that have screwed up that includes, well, EVERY Christian. This will be tough for him to deal with, but from I read in the ESPN.com interview, he should be able to get through it.Even if HGH wasn’t banned at the time, I don’t think it was right for him to be using it. But that’s something we’ll get into further as the story progresses.

I have compassion for him, while still thinking that he did something he shouldn’t have.If you’ve been in a spot like Paul is, where you’ve screwed up and folks are finding out about it, perhaps you can say a prayer for him that something good comes out of it all. If you want to pile on him, you are free to do that to i suppose.More on this as the story develops

UPDATE: Reader Brian D. alerted us to this update, in which Byrd claims the HGH was prescribed to him by a doctor for adult growth-hormone deficiency. if this is legitimate, and Byrd never abused the HGH for unethical advantage as he claims, then good for him.

Tags: baseball, HGH, Paul Byrd