As if the Indians needed a distraction

Did Paul Byrd cheat? It's in a gray area, for sure, tugging between a right to medical privacy and the public's right to know whether an athlete is cheating or not.

A story in Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle, by the same two writers who broke the Barry Bonds/BALCO scandal, have business receipts that show that the Indians pitcher bought more than 1,000 vials of human growth hormone between 2002 and 2005, when he played for the Kansas City Royals, Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Angels.

And Byrd admitted Sunday that he did take HGH, but under a doctor's prescription, and never tried to hide it, paying for it with his own credit card and having it delivered to his spring training hotel in his name.

Byrd told FoxSports.com that three different doctors diagnosed him as suffering from adult growth-hormone deficiency. In spring training, he said, he was diagnosed with a tumor on his pituitary gland at the base of his brain, a condition that may have contributed to his deficiency, doctors told him.

"I have not taken any hormone apart from a doctor's care and supervision," Byrd told FoxSports.com. "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."

Byrd, the winning pitcher in two games this postseason for Cleveland, says he no longer takes HGH and has not taken it this season. He didn't do anything that was against the law, or baseball's rules at the time. He faces no disciplinary action, just as Rick Ankiel of the Cardinals didn't 't face them either. They're both hung up in the same investigation of a Florida "anti-aging" clinic. Human growth hormone wasn't banned from baseball when Byrd bought it.

Byrd, in a book on faith and baseball that he hopes to have published next spring, writes about his ethical quandary on taking 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.

"... Some strange silent voices ran across my brain and had conversations with me as I pulled back the syringe. I remember having thoughts that doing better on the field could mean more money for my family, my charities and even supporting churches. Then I prayed and realized that God was in control of my life and he wouldn't want me making money through cheating the system."

Byrd will hardly be the last player named in any performance-enhancing drugs probe. But perhaps special investigator George Mitchell should recuse himself from passing judgment when his team is involved. Mitchell denies that he was the source for the Chronicle story, and it's unlikely that he was. But the fact that he's a member of the Board of Directors for the Boston Red Sox raises a very big red flag about the timing of the announcement.

When Mitchell's report comes out later this year, it promises to be a doozy, affecting players and reputations of every team. But if he's not truly an impartial investigator, any findings are tainted. Conflict of interest, no doubt about it. And that's a shame.