A six-year legal battle over positive steroid tests that tarnished some of baseball’s most cherished story lines and embarrassed players union and federal officials quietly came to an end last week, with the union declaring victory.

Federal authorities, who seized drug-testing information for roughly 100 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, will be forced to destroy that information, which has become known in baseball simply as The List.

The names of the players who tested positive in 2003, the first year that baseball tested for steroids, were never supposed to become public. But some of the game’s biggest stars  including Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez  were linked to positive tests in 2009 through reports by Sports Illustrated and The New York Times.

Each side won judgments during the legal fight, but the decisive moment came in September when the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in the union’s favor. The government had 90 days to appeal to the Supreme Court, a period that expired Monday. The Justice Department had announced on the preceding Friday that it would not appeal the decision.