Baseball: Star was 'doing coke' while missing

Baseball star Darryl Strawberry told his probation officer he spent the four days he was missing doing cocaine with a female friend and armed men who took his jewellery and abandoned him in a motel room.

In a report to the judge who will decide whether Strawberry will go to prison, Florida probation officials said yesterday that Strawberry tested positive to cocaine and violated the terms of his house arrest in his four-day absence from a drug rehabilitation centre.

The report came as Strawberry remained in a psychiatric ward at St Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, Florida, while doctors evaluated him.

Under arrest for violating his probation, he will be sent to jail and held without bail once doctors declare him mentally stable.