However, baseball won't be without its own version of a dream team. In a country where baseball is truly the national pastime, Cuba has assembled a cohesive squad featuring experienced veterans and major-league talent who have elected to remain on the national team rather than seeking opportunities in professional leagues. While Cuba's players remain on the team for many years, other countries such as Japan and the United States revise their rosters annually while selecting their squads from college and youth teams.
To help speed up the game, pitchers cannot take more than 20 seconds before delivering their next pitch. Other rules designed to keep the action moving limit defensive conferences at the pitching mound and require players to remain in the batter's box unless granted a legitimate timeout by the umpire.
In the Olympic tournament, the eight teams play a round-robin schedule with the top four teams advancing to the semifinals. Once in the semifinals, the No. 1 team plays the No. 4 team and the No. 2 team plays the No. 3 team, with the winners advancing to the gold medal game and the losers playing for the bronze medal.
Coaches will try to counter the offensive onslaught with pitching staffs that have produced such notable major leaguers as Jim Abbott (USA, 1988) and Hideo Nomo (JPN, 1988). Look for fastballs, change-ups, sliders and curves from Japan's Sugiura MASANORI, Korea's CHA Myung-Ju, Cuba's Lazaro VALLE and the United States' Ryan DRESE in their attempts to cool off the hot Olympic bats.
This is an official publication of the Atlanta Committee for
the Olympic Games Sports Publication Department. Written by Howard
Thomas.
| Closing Ceremony of the 1996 Games involved a crew of 2,100 who worked with more than 3,500 performers as well as thousands of athletes who celebrated on the field of Olympic Stadium. |