Washington ? The baseball players said politely and firmly they wanted tough rules against steroids. They were clearly angry at Jose Canseco. Curt Schilling called him a “liar.”

Choked-up, teary-eyed former home-run king Mark McGwire refused to answer steroid-related questions. Other players denied steroid use. And baseball executives insisted the rules were already strong and getting stronger as members of Congress scoffed at such claims.

Those were just the glittery highlights of Thursday’s House Government Reform Committee hearing on steroid use in Major League Baseball. During the 11-hour session, parents of suicide victims also described in detail how steroid use led to their children’s deaths.

Peeved members of the committee hammered the executives, criticizing their efforts to clean up the game as meek and inadequate and vowing that Washington’s quest to rid sports of steroids had just begun.

“We’re in the first inning of what could be an extra-inning ballgame,” said Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va.

“Major League Baseball never exercised (its) authority to investigate steroid use,” said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who pushed for Thursday’s hearings on the use of illegal substances in baseball, as he summed up what he saw as baseball’s chief problem. “Its position boils down to this: We don’t know what happened, we don’t know who did it, and we don’t know what they did or how they did it.”

Canseco, the former slugger and 1988 American League Most Valuable Player, had triggered the probe. In his recent book, “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big,” and in subsequent media interviews, he accused several current and former players of using steroids, and though he didn’t name names Thursday, he would not back down from his charges.

But he would not discuss them in depth, pleading the Fifth Amendment because he is on probation for assault and drug violations and could not get immunity for his testimony.

Canseco, who again Thursday admitted using steroids, came under some tough questioning. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., noted that in his book, the former player described how steroids were becoming more and more common, and in some cases could be useful.

Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, from right, Baltimore Oriole Rafael Palmeiro, former St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire and Oriole Sammy Sosa listen to testimony before the U.S. House committee investigating steroid use in baseball. The players testified Thursday in Congress.

“Are you now for a zero tolerance policy?” Cummings asked.

“Absolutely,” said Canseco, as the audience chuckled.

His baseball colleagues sat on the left side of the long witness table, isolating Canseco and his attorney on the right.

Former teammate Mark McGwire fought back tears as he discussed his onetime “Bash Brother,” the soul of a team that led the Oakland A’s to three American League pennants between 1988 and 1990.

“I do not sit in judgment of other players, whether it deals with their sexual preference, their marital problems or their personal habits, including whether or not they used chemical substances,” McGwire said, his ruddy face tight with tension. “That has never been my style, and I do not intend to change just because the cameras are turned on.”

He looked squarely at the lawmakers in front of him, never once glancing at the man with whom he once shared champagne and glory, perhaps as the best back-to-back slugging duo the sport had in their day.

“Nor do I intend to dignify Mr. Canseco’s book,” McGwire continued, his voice still struggling not to crack. He paused, gathered himself and went on.

“It should be enough that you consider the source of the statements in the book and the many inconsistencies and contradictions that have already been raised,” McGwire said.

He would not admit or deny using steroids. “My lawyers have advised me that I cannot answer these questions without jeopardizing my friends, my family or myself,” McGwire said. “I intend to follow their advice.”

Rep. John E. Sweeney, R-N.Y., tried to probe what he did; McGwire insisted, “I’m not going to talk about the past,” a phrase he would use repeatedly.

Others players were less emotional and more pointed, and two who had been accused of using steroids emphasized that they had not.

“To be clear, I have never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs. I have never injected myself or had anyone inject me with anything,” said Baltimore Orioles outfielder Sammy Sosa, who engaged in a memorable home run duel with McGwire in 1998. McGwire hit 70 home runs that year, shattering Roger Maris’ 37-year-old record of 61.

Fellow Oriole Rafael Palmeiro, one of Canseco’s targets, was just as unequivocal in his denial. “I have never used steroids. Period. I don’t know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never,” he said. “The reference to me in Mr. Canseco’s book is absolutely false.”

Boston Red Sox pitcher Schilling also appeared, and Chicago White Sox designated hitter Frank Thomas testified by videoconferencing from Tucson, Ariz., where the White Sox train. Schilling and Thomas have been outspoken foes of steroid use, and Davis announced Thursday that they would join him and Waxman in heading an advisory panel searching for solutions to the problem.

Rarely has a congressional committee hearing been such a big Washington event. The players entered with the kind of flourish usually reserved for contestants on “American Idol.” Unlike most witnesses, who wait patiently in their committee room seats, the ballplayers were kept in a special lounge until their time came. Canseco sat in a room apart from the other players.

They entered the hot, crowded hearing room one by one, snaking through a semicircle of cameras that surrounded their witness table. Palmeiro looked leaner and taller in his dark suit than he does in uniform; McGwire never lost his grim, nervous look.

Unlike other sports-related hearings, this one was all business. There were no dreamy congressional recollections of an old home run or a sunny day at Fenway Park. Each ballplayer was sworn in, the hearing got down to very serious business at the outset, and it never let up.

The topic involved a poison that has not just infiltrated the major leagues but the games that teenagers play.

“Our 16- and 17-year-old children are injecting themselves with anabolic steroids, just like big leaguers do,” said Donald Hooton of Plano, Texas, whose 17-year-old son Taylor killed himself after using steroids.

For once, the feeling Congress should act was nearly unanimous. “Major league baseball leaders,” said committee Vice Chairman Christopher Shays, R-Conn., “have done more to unite Democrats and Republicans in this Congress than anything in the last 18 years.”

Shays was particularly annoyed at the baseball executives for being too lenient toward players and too confusing in their explanations about their steroid policies. “Your answers make me want to know more about what the hell do you do.”

Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and union executive director Donald Fehr defended the policy. Fehr said “progressive punishment” is routine in labor-management dealings.

The hearing’s first witness, Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., a Hall of Fame pitcher for the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Phillies, was unyielding in his criticism.

He scoffed at baseball’s penalties for steroid use, notably its first offense punishment of a 10-day suspension or a $10,000 fine.

“I think the penalties are really puny,” Bunning said. Suspend players for a month the first time, then a year for a second offense and a lifetime ban for a third, he urged.

And, he said, wipe out any records set by steroid users, a recommendation the players would not comment on. If baseball hesitates to take tough action, Bunning insisted, “the owners need to know we can and will act.”

Bunning’s strong pitch set the stage for the day’s biggest emotional tug. Denise and Raymond Garibaldi, of Petaluma, Calif., and Hooton sat before the committee, methodically, determinedly offering gripping testimony about their children.

“As a teen,” Denise Garibaldi said, rarely betraying any emotion, her son Rob “was told by all working with him — coaches, trainers and scouts — that the way to get better was to get bigger.”

In October, 2002, Rob Garibaldi shot himself in the head. “What we know is without steroid use, Rob’s suffering and ultimately his death would have been averted,” she said. “There is no doubt in our minds that steroids killed our son.”

Then came Hooton. His son, who killed himself 20 months ago, was well-liked, looking ahead to college, a “ladies man,” his father said, laughing.

“I am absolutely convinced that Taylor’s use of anabolic steroids caused the severe depression that resulted in his suicide,” Hooton said. He warned about telltale signs that suggest a person is using steroids — bad breath, puffy neck and face, acne on the back, and unpredictable, extreme behavior.

“The signs are right in front of you,” Hooton said.