Come on down Paul Byrd, your next on who has purchased illegal performance-enhancing drugs. That’s right, Byrd has been linked to the Palm Beach Rejuvenation Center investigation into the distribution of steroids, HGH and other illegal PED’s.
According to a report in today’s San Francisco Chronicle, Byrd allegedly bought $24,850 of HGH and syringes. The amount of HGH he purchased was over a 1,000 vials.
It all started back in 2002 when he was a member of the Kansas City Royals. He bought 12 boxes of HGH. Each box held 15 vials. Byrd missed the 2003 season due to an elbow injury.
In 2004, he was a member of the Atlanta Braves and received two shipments of HGH. He even had the balls to have one of them shipped to the Braves spring training complex at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex. In July of that year, he had one shipped to the hotel the Braves were staying at in New York City.
His last purchase of HGH came one week before MLB banned it. According to the source in the investigation, two of the prescriptions were written by a dentist who was later convicted of fraud and incompetence. Well, it’s a no wonder he was incompetent if he was giving HGH to patients when he should have been doing root canals or pulling teeth.
In the past, Byrd had been quoted as saying he had never used steroids:
“Kids need to know that when they tested us, only 7 percent (of major-leaguers) tested positive for steroids,” he was quoted as saying. “Everyone isn’t using steroids, and you don’t have to use them to succeed.”
“I strongly disagree with the use of steroids and cheating in the game,” he said. “I have a huge problem with that. I work as hard as I can to compete within the rules.”
Ummmm, Paul, you obviously don’t have a huge problem with it as you had the drugs shipped to the Braves spring training complex and even a hotel on the road while with the Braves.
For me the timing of this story is a strange one. Why did the editors at the San Francisco Chronicle choose to publish this story on the morning of the Game 7 of the ALCS? It’s bad enough that it happened (him purchasing HGH that is) at all but to release it when Byrd and his Indians teammates don’t need the biggest distraction of them all. Couldn’t they have waited until tomorrow or did they want to sell more Sunday papers?
As a Red Sox fan, I want the Indians to have all the distractions that they can tonight. But as a baseball fan, I don’t want to see something like this take away from a big game, especially one in which a berth in the World Series will be decided.
It’s going to be very interesting to see how the crowd at Fenway Park reacts tonight.
