Despite getting little or no cooperation from baseball players or their union, an investigative panel has issued a report detailing widespread steroid use in Major League Baseball and naming dozens of current and former players who used the performance-enhancing drugs, CNN reported Dec. 13.

The report was commissioned by the league and prepared by former Sen. George Mitchell, who called steroid use in baseball "a serious problem that cannot be solved by anything less than a well-conceived, well-executed and cooperative effort by everyone involved in baseball."

"Everyone involved in baseball over the past two decades -- commissioners, club officials, the Players Association, the players -- shares, to some extent, in the responsibility for the steroid era," Mitchell said. "There was a collective failure to recognize the problem as it emerged and to deal with it early on."

Some of the game's biggest past and present stars were publicly identified as steroid users, including Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mo Vaughn, Andy Pettitte, and Gary Sheffield.

Responding to the report, baseball commissioner Bud Selig said the findings were "a call to action, and I will act."

"Discipline of players and others identified in this report will be determined on a case-by-case basis. If warranted, those decisions will be made swiftly," Selig said.

Immediate reaction from baseball players and individual teams was muted, although an attorney for Clemens said his client "vehemently denies" the allegations that he used steroids. Donald Fehr, head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, was critical of the report. "Many players are named. Their reputations have been adversely affected, probably forever, even if it turns out down the road that they should not have been," he said.

Mitchell, Selig and others are scheduled to appear before Congress to discuss the findings. Rep. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.), a former major league pitcher, praised the report but added, "As a fan and former player, this is the saddest day in my life for baseball."

"I believe that those players who tried to gain an unfair advantage by using these substances should have their records stripped," Bunning said.