Aldo Notari

Aldo Notari

• Born September 6, 1932 in Parma, Italy
• Died July 25, 2006 in Parma, Italy

Aldo Notari began his 60-year career in baseball in 1950 as a player for the Parma club. He remained with the club as a player through the 1964 season when he retired to join the team's from office. He had hit .125/.250/.197 in 1960, .205/.262/.205 in 1961 and .042/.148/.042 in 1964, playing in the outfield primarily all three years.

He became the President of the Club in 1969 and held the position until 1985. During the same time period Notari was the vice president of the Italian Baseball Federation, Federazione Italiana Baseball & Softball (FIBS).

In 1972, Notari joined the Confédération Européenne de Baseball's (CEB) technical commission. In the same year he presented the confederation with an idea for a new international competition, the Intercontinental Cup which would be held in the alternating years when there is no World Cup. Notarijoined the IBAF's legal commission in 1976 and in the following year switched commisions to the technical commission.

Notari became a vice-president in the IBAF in 1984, relenquishing his committee seat. He became the President of the FIBS in 1985 and held that position until 2001. As the head of the FIBS he served as an the Executive Board Member of the Italian National Olympic Committee. In 1987, Notari was elected as the President of the CEB, not retiring until 2005.

In 1993, at the IBAF Congress in Rome, Italy, Notari was elected President of the IBAF, the first European to serve in that capacity. He was re-elected three times; at Pamplona, Spain in 1997 and at Lausanne, Switzerland in 2001 and 2005. In 2002, he was awarded the Olympic Order, the award of the Olympic Movement, for his role in adding baseball to the Olympics.

After the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted to drop baseball and softball from the Olympics after the 2008 Beijing Games, Notari was the main lobbing force to have baseball reinstated for the 2012 Games in London. However, the IOC upheld its decision in February. He was also involved in the creation of the World Baseball Classic, which was run by Major League Baseball, but sanctioned by the IBAF and involved MLB players. The first tournament was held in March 2006 and involved sixteen national teams and over 100 MLB players.

In July 2006 he was hospitalized for treatment of what was believed to be stomach cancer. He died on the evening of July 25. Harvey Schiller was later selected as his replacement as head of the IBAF.

Outside of baseball he worked as an engineer. His wife Angela died in 2001 and he is survived by two daughters, Sabrina and Cristina.