Talks have begun among baseball’s top guns to develop a plan they hope will lead to the sport’s reinstatement to the Olympic Games.
International Baseball Federation President Aldo Notari, Denis Oswald, President of the Association of Summer Olympic Federations, which represents all 28 sports, and Bob DuPuy, Major League baseball’s chief operating officer, are involved in the meeting.
Notari told the Associated Press, “we are trying to find ways to return to the Olympic Games as quickly as possible. We were only out by three votes. Maybe this time, if we get another vote, we’ll be 10 to 15 votes ahead. I don’t think this is impossible”.
Notari said it would take two or three days to develop strategies to push for a new vote at the IOC’s next general assembly in February being held on the eve of the Turin 2006 Winter Games.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) members cited Major League Baseball’s unwillingness to let its players take part in the Olympics and the sport’s doping problems as major reasons for the decision to remove it from the Games.
But Notari said, “we’re only talking about the North American league. Japan sent its best players to Athens. There are 100 million baseball players in the world. We’re talking about 1,000 in the Major Leagues.
“As for doping, it’s a minority. And we are working to address that, too”.
