Football
Associated Press 21y

IBF recommends reducing event to five days

HAVANA -- Trying to ensure baseball remains in the Olympics,
International Baseball Federation president Aldo Notari will
recommend his sport's competition be reduced from 12 to five days.

"One of the problems of baseball in the Olympics is that it is
too long, that too many games are played,'' Notari said Friday.
"It has to be cut. If we cut the game program in the Olympics, the
big leagues can also think about giving their players permission
for a week.''

Major league baseball players have not participated in the
Olympics, although teams did supply minor league prospects for the
2000 tournament in Sydney, Australia.

In August, the International Olympics Committee program
commission recommended that baseball, softball and modern
pentathlon be dropped starting with the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The IOC executive committee is to decide at a meeting in Mexico
City late this month whether to accept that recommendation.

Notari, in Cuba for the Intercontinental Baseball Cup that
opened Friday night with a game between Cuba and the Netherlands,
is to make his pitch to the IOC on Nov. 28.

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