Andy Pettitte used human growth hormone to recover from an elbow injury in 2002, the New York Yankees pitcher admitted two days after he was cited in the Mitchell Report.

Pettitte said he tried HGH on two occasions, stressing he did it to heal faster and not enhance his performance. He emphasized he never used steroids.

"If what I did was an error in judgment on my part, I apologize," Pettitte said yesterday in a statement. "I accept responsibility for those two days."

On Thursday, Pettitte was among 85 players named by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell's investigation into steroids and performance-enhancing drugs. Pettitte had not commented publicly on the allegations.

Pettitte asked the trainer he shared with Roger Clemens, Brian McNamee, to help him with HGH while on the disabled list early in the season, the report said. McNamee recalled injecting Pettitte two to four times, Mitchell said.

"In 2002 I was injured. I had heard that human growth hormone could promote faster healing for my elbow," Pettitte said.

"I felt an obligation to get back to my team as soon as possible. For this reason, and only this reason, for two days I tried human growth hormone. Though it was not against baseball rules, I was not comfortable with what I was doing, so I stopped.

"This is it -- two days out of my life; two days out of my entire career, when I was injured and on the disabled list," he said. "I wasn't looking for an edge. I was looking to heal."

The 35-year-old lefty is 201-113 lifetime. He started his major league career in 1995 and won four World Series championships with the Yankees. He pitched for his hometown Houston Astros from 2004-06 and helped them reach their first World Series.

Pettitte returned to the Yankees last season and went 15-9. This month, he put off retirement and agreed to a $16 million, one-year contract to play for the Yankees next season.

Jim Edmonds is returning to Southern California after San Diego obtained the 37-year-old center fielder and cash from the St. Louis Cardinals for a minor leaguer. The deal needed approval of the commissioner's office because the Cardinals are sending approximately $1 million to the Padres to help offset Edmonds' salary. The deal came about quickly after free agent center fielder Mike Cameron broke off talks with the Padres.

The Mitchell Report had computers and printers working overtime Thursday. More than 2 million people downloaded the report on MLB.com, according to one official. Assuming many of them printed it out at 409 pages, that would be more than 800 million sheets of copy paper. Just in case you were wondering.