Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
October 21, 2007
Byrd on Drugs

The San Francisco Chronicle exposes Human Growth Hormone use by Paul Byrd.

Many of the shipments reflected in the records were sent to Byrd's home in Alpharetta, Ga., north of Atlanta. But in March 2004, while he was pitching for Atlanta, a $1,050 order of syringes and somatropin, the generic name for synthetic growth hormone, was sent to Byrd in care of the Braves' spring training facility at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex in Kissimmee, Fla., the records show.

On July 22, 2004, according to the records, $2,000 worth of somatropin and syringes was shipped to Byrd at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City, where the Braves were playing a series against the Mets. The Braves were scheduled to stay at the Grand Hyatt during that trip, according to media information distributed by Major League Baseball.

Baseball formally banned the use of growth hormone on Jan. 13, 2005. One week earlier, Byrd made his final purchase of growth hormone from the Palm Beach Rejuvenation Center, spending $2,000 for six boxes of somatropin, company records show.

The Palm Beach Rejuvenation Center is part of a network of anti-aging clinics and online pharmacies targeted by the Albany, N.Y., district attorney for alleged illegal sales of drugs, including steroids and growth hormone. Many of the clinics and pharmacies are located in Florida and Alabama, but the New York prosecutor claimed jurisdiction, contending they had illegally sold more than $10 million worth of banned drugs in his state. Often doctors associated with the network wrote fraudulent prescriptions to make the sales seem legitimate, authorities said.

Two of Byrd's prescriptions for growth hormones were not written by a physician, according to a law enforcement source. Instead, the prescriptions were written by a Florida dentist, said the source, who asked not to be quoted by name because he was not authorized to comment. The dentist's license was suspended in 2003 for fraud and incompetence, state records show.

Byrd responded to FoxSports:

Byrd, a devout Christian, says he has had difficulty sleeping his entire life, and that his mother briefly put him on Ritalin when he was a young boy. In his book, he describes the effects of his sleeplessness and how it ultimately led him to a physician that prescribed HGH.

"Even though there were good things like my time with God that came out of my aloneness in the night, the sporadic periods of fatigue and lack of sleep have really bothered me on the baseball field," Byrd writes. "Chronic sore throats, an inability to recover and throw bullpens and times of tiredness have all affected while standing on the mound.

"At the insistence of a close friend, I went and had my hormones checked . . . To my surprise, the doctor told me that I was producing very little growth hormone and prescribed a dosage to help me out. I didn't like sticking a needle in my inner thigh each night but I sure did enjoy the sleep that occurred afterwards. My life changed during that time and I was able to work out more, experience less fatigue and recover quicker from pitching.

So does Selig suspend Byrd for this game? Reading both stories, the thing that doesn't smell right is the prescription from a dentist. If true, that hurts Byrd's credibility on the issue.


Posted by David Pinto at 07:50 PM | Cheating | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I believe the dentist has since lost his ability to prescribe, due to fraud and incompetance (I forget the two words, but they're synonyms of those).

Posted by: Mike at October 22, 2007 08:18 AM

Oops, you have that already. sorry!

Posted by: Mike at October 22, 2007 08:19 AM
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