Jose Canseco is given probation

Former baseball slugger Jose Canseco was sentenced Tuesday to 10 months of unsupervised probation after pleading guilty to a federal misdemeanor charge of bringing mislabeled vials of a performance-enhancing drug into the United States from Mexico.

Canseco, 44, was detained Oct. 9 at the San Ysidro border crossing when agents found six vials of human chorionic gonadotropin, labeled in Spanish, in his car. Canseco had no prescription for the drug or instructions for its use.

He told Magistrate Judge Ruben Brooks that he made a mistake by not declaring to border agents that he had the vials. Human chorionic gonadotropin boosts testosterone in males.

Canseco hit 462 home runs during his major-league career. In 2005 he admitted having taken anabolic steroids.

-- Tony Perry