Dozens of top baseball stars including Roger Clemens were named in the long-awaited Mitchell Report on steroids use, which Major League Baseball hopes will help clean up the sport's tarnished image.
The sharply worded, 311-page report by former US Sen. George Mitchell, called for unannounced year-round steroids tests to help end a drug culture of pervasive steroid use at all 30 Major League teams.
"For more than a decade there has been widespread illegal use of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances by players in Major League Baseball in violation of federal law and baseball policy," Mitchell said at a news conference.
"The response by baseball was slow to develop and was initially ineffective, but it gained momentum after the adoption of a mandatory random drug-testing program in 2002."
That culture of drug use included a virtual Hall of Fame of some of the sport's biggest names of recent years: Clemens, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Eric Gagne, Miguel Tejada, David Justice, Chuck Knoblauch and Andy Pettitte.
So pervasive was the use of the substances - which build muscles and endurance quicker than otherwise possible - Mitchell said, that "hundreds of thousands of children" were also using steroids to get ahead in America's favorite pastime.