Byrd speaks out about HGH
October 22, 2007 – 7:27 am Posted by bryan in » Christianity, MLB
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Via ESPN.com, here’s Paul Byrd responding to the San Francisco Chronicle’s report that he purchased almost $25,000 worth of HGH from 2002 to 2005.
here’s essentially what Byrd says in the video:
“I have never taken any hormone or any drug that was not prescribed to me by a doctor. I was prescribed a hormone, I did inject it, and I did have the temptation to take more of it that what was prescribed so that my fastball would reach into the 90s on a consistent basis. I never succumbed to any of those temptations, I never took any more than what was prescribed me. I didn’t start to throw the ball a lot harder…I was taking it for my well-being and for general life circumstances that were made known to me…I have never done anything that has disrespected the game…I don’t want to show up at a stadium and have people think I cheated…I’m one game away from the World Series and now I’m dealing with my medical history.”
ESPN’s Buster Olney, who refers to Byrd as “…a very religious guy, a very thoughtful guy…” says that there are still some lingering questions raised by the SF Chronicle story, such as:
+ If this use of HGH is approved, why did he stop taking it?
+ Why did one of the prescriptions come from a dentist?
+ How much does he think HGH helped him as a pitcher?
+ Were there other alternative treatments for the sleeplessness and adult growth hormone deficiency than HGH, something that has been linked to performance enhancing drugs?
I really don’t think this is much of a story anymore, but I wanted to put Paul Byrd’s response out there for everyone to see. Even if Byrd had used the HGH to come back from injury, it was before baseball had banned it, so it falls into a huge gray area.
Because Byrd appears to have legitimate reasons for taking HGH, and because he stopped taking them before they were banned, and because his stuff as a pitcher never drastically changed, I don’t see anything more happening with this story. Did the HGH help him recover from the injuries that he sustained over the time frame he was taking HGH? Probably, but we don’t really know.
I’ll track the story in case anything else happens, but I think we can move on…
