Bush says steroid use has sullied baseball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Friday that the use of steroids in baseball has "sullied" the game, a day after a report revealed scores of players received the performance-enhancing drugs.

"I think it's best that all of us not jump to any conclusions on individual players named, but we can jump to this conclusion: that steroids have sullied the game," said Bush, a former part owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team.

"My hope is that this report is a part of putting the steroid era of baseball behind us," he said after a meeting with his Cabinet. "Players and the owners must take the Mitchell report seriously. I'm confident they will."

The sharply worded report released on Thursday by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell called for unannounced year-round testing by an independent body to help end a pervasive culture of performance-enhancing drug use among the 30 league teams.

The report also criticized baseball ownership for overlooking the problem and the players' union's resistance to drug testing in the past for creating an environment that allowed drug cheating and cast doubt over some of the sport's most cherished records.

Bush helped assemble a group of investors to buy the Texas baseball franchise in 1989 and resigned as managing general partner in 1994 after being elected governor of Texas.

(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky, editing by David Alexander)