I’m pissed at the front office for pulling this today. I’m supposed to be psyched that Charlie Zink is finally getting his shot, and I am, but I’m also utterly disgusted that they picked up Paul Byrd.
You remember Byrd:
The 36-year-old right-hander said he took the drug for a medical condition but claimed he never injected it without a doctor’s prescription. In an interview with foxsports.com, in spring training Byrd said the medical condition was a tumor on his pituitary gland.
“I have not taken any hormone apart from a doctor’s care and supervision,” Byrd said. “The Indians, my coaches and MLB have known that I have had a pituitary gland issue for some time and have assisted me in getting blood tests in different states. I am currently working with an endocrinologist and will have another MRI on my head after the season to make sure that the tumor hasn’t grown.
“I have nothing to hide,” he later said, two hours before Game 7 in Boston, where the Red Sox’s 11-2 ALCS-clinching win capped their rally from a 3-1 series deficit. “Everything has been done out in the open. I have a reputation. I speak to kids, I speak to churches. I do not want the fans of Cleveland or honest, caring people to think that I cheated. Because I didn’t.”
A report Sunday in The San Francisco Chronicle said Byrd bought nearly $25,000 worth of human growth hormone and syringes between 2002 and 2005. Byrd said he no longer is taking HGH.
MLB senior vice president for business and labor Rob Manfred told the New York Daily News in a story for Monday that Byrd hadn’t received a therapeutic use exemption (TUE) to use HGH. The TUE is a special waiver allowing players to take a banned drug for a legitimate medical reason.
“If he’s saying that to create the impression that he was authorized or had permission, we have never granted a [therapeutic use exemption] for human growth hormone, ever,” said Manfred, according to the Daily News. “Not for this guy, not for anybody.”
So, seemingly, for his struggles, Clay Buchholz will get replaced with a guy who got where he is by cheating.
Yeah, that makes me proud to be a Red Sox fan right now.
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