Baseball Federation seeks to expand World Baseball Classic and return baseball to Olympics, says MLB can't monopolize

12/13/10, Caracas, Venezuela: "Give more incentive to baseball is the objective of the International Baseball Federation (IBAF), which

• wants to expand to 28 teams in the World Classic in 2013 and to achieve federation

• will meet with Major League Baseball next January in Havana.

Italian Ricardo Fraccari, president of the IBAF said Monday in remarks to the Cuban radio station Radio Rebelde that the goal is to participate

• in the World Baseball Classic 28 teams

and that "it is by invitation only, but can also intervene those earning the right in qualifying tournaments. "

The World Baseball Classic first held in 2006 and the second three years later, both with the participation of 16 teams, all invited. Japan was the winning team in the two editions.

Fraccari reached the island on Friday for a 72-hour visit, met with a vice president of the IBAF,

• Dr. Antonio Castro, son of former President Fidel Castro, to prepare the IBAF Executive Committee, scheduled in island in January.

Baseball was excluded from the Olympic program and no appointment will be played in London (2012), so as Fraccari, IBAF plans to develop "a strong development

• plan to achieve the return of baseball to the Olympics."

Moreover, the federation noted that "the majors can not monopolize the sport while IBAF remain strong, and that the main problems facing stem from their exclusion from the Olympic program, because from that time many National Olympic Committees will withdrew the funding. "

• At the meeting next January IBAF also talk about the baseball schedule for the years 2011 to 2014, and defined the headquarters of the World Cup to be held next year.

Major League Baseball representatives have already met with the Executive Committee of the IBAF last November in Taiwan where he held the Intercontinental Baseball Cup.

During the visit did not have access Fraccari the foreign press in Cuba,

• and Cuban authorities made no comment."

"MLB Baseball Federation and Classic Talk," AP report in El Nacional, appears to be filed from Caracas, Venezuela, 12/13/10, google translation from Spanish. original Spanish

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