Mitchell Report Reveals Steroid Users

Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell on Thursday released a 20-month investigation of steroids in Major League Baseball, a damning report that names some of the game's biggest stars over the past decade.

Mitchell, a former Senate majority leader and director of the Boston Red Sox, was tapped by baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to conduct the probe last year, to clear the air amid increasing criticism that the sport turned a blind eye to the growing use of performance-enhancing drugs beginning in the 1990s. He said in the report that the use of steroids in baseball was "widespread," as was the blame.

"Obviously, the players who illegally used performance enhancing substances are responsible for their actions," Mitchell wrote in the report. "But they did not act in a vacuum. Everyone involved in baseball over the past two decades -- commissioners, club officials, the Players Association, and players -- shares to some extent in the responsibility for the steroids era. There was a collective failure to recognize the problem as it emerged and to deal with it early on. As a result, an environment developed in which illegal use became widespread."

While critical of baseball, perhaps the most sensational part of the report was its inclusion of prominent players, including All Stars and potential Hall of Famers.

Seven-time Most Valuable Player Barry Bonds -- who has been indicted on perjury charges in connection with a federal probe into a San Francisco Bay-area laboratory and who has been scrutinized for his alleged use of performance enhancers in recent years -- was not so much of a surprise.