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Baseball pre-Olympic heads into
second and final stage
• Cuba, the only unbeaten team • The
winning teams get two direct entries into the 2008
Olympics in Beijing, six to the 2007 World
Championship in Taipei and seven to the Pan-American
Games in Rio de Janeiro that year
THE
Pre-Olympic Baseball Tournament of the Americas
moves today into its second stage, covering eight
teams from the Western Hemisphere, including Cuba as
the only unbeaten team. Winners of the competition,
which continues until Tuesday, September 5, get two
direct entries into the baseball event of the 2008
Olympic Games in Beijing, six to the 2007 World
Championship in Taipei and seven to the Pan-American
Games in Rio de Janeiro that year.
From
the first round, the competing Group A teams are
Cuba (3-0), Panama (2-1), Nicaragua (1-2) and the
Dominican Republic (0-3), while from Group B, the
teams are United States (2-1), Mexico (2-1), Canada
(1-2) and Venezuela (1-2).
From
this Friday, September 1 until Tuesday, with Monday
4 being a rest day, each team will play the four
classifying selections from the opposite group, and
will not play against their own group again.
The
first two games of this round are this afternoon
(14:00 hours, local time): Canada vs. Panama in the
Santiago “Changa” Mederos Stadium and the United
States vs. Dominican Republic in the Nelson
Fernández.
The
evening programming (20:00 hours) includes Cuba vs.
Venezuela at the Latinoamericano Stadium, the
tournament’s main venue, which seats 55,000
spectators, and Mexico vs. Nicaragua at the Nelson
Fernández, in San José de las Lajas, 30 kilometers
southwest of the capital.
The
calendar has the Cuba-United States game – a major
attraction in any baseball tournament – at the end,
but both teams could arrive at the duel with their
tickets to Beijing assured.
The
Cuban selection, comprised of many of the same
players who won second place in the first World
Classic this past March, sped through the first
stage of this tournament by winning four of their
five victories (against Colombia, Dominican
Republic, Nicaragua and Ecuador) the fast way – in
knockouts.
The
team boasts of an offense that averages .392, with
15 home runs among the regular players, supporting a
pitching lineup that allowed only 1.46 clean runs
for each nine innings. (PL)
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