LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Baseball made its pitch to the International Olympic Committee Friday for a place at the 2016 Summer Games.

A team of six, led by International Baseball Federation president Harvey Schiller and featuring Detroit Tigers center fielder Curtis Granderson, spent an hour putting their case for inclusion to an IOC panel of experts.

Schiller told reporters the one-hour presentation to the program commission at IOC headquarters went well.

"I thought everybody was smiling," said Schiller, a former Turner Sports and New York Yankees executive.

Leaders of baseball, softball, golf, karate, roller sports, rugby and squash are competing for two available slots on the 2016 schedule.

All are scheduled to meet Friday with the 16-member program commission, which will deliver an influential report to the IOC's top decision-making body before a vote next year in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Baseball was followed in the closed-door sessions by golf, represented by USPGA executive Ty Votaw and Peter Dawson of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, Scotland.

"I think they felt we made a powerful presentation," Dawson said after the meeting.

All seven competing sports were rejected for the 2012 London Games program in voting by more than 100 IOC members three years ago.

Baseball and softball were dropped, while the other five failed to gather enough support for inclusion.

Schiller said the baseball representatives were quizzed about their ability to deliver major league players to a 16-team Games tournament during August.

"We're committed to bringing the best players ever to the Olympic baseball tournament," he said.

"We talked about our advances in drug testing. We have an agreement with the professional leagues in terms of out-of-competition testing for the events we sanction."

The program commission, including eight IOC members and eight administrators from other sports, asked about baseball's ability to reach viewers through the internet and other new media. It was told that no MLB games would clash with the gold medal match.

Each sport must host an IOC delegation to observe an event, and baseball has invited officials to attend the World Baseball Classic finals being played in Los Angeles next March.

Schiller said baseball could work well with any of the four candidate cities bidding to host the 2016 Games. Rio de Janeiro and Madrid had baseball in their plans when bidding for the 2012 Games, while Chicago and Tokyo have existing teams, stadiums and big fan bases.

"All four have strong baseball programs," Schiller said.

Chicago-born Granderson said he favored his home town. "That would be amazing. I'm a little bit biased toward Chicago but I definitely wouldn't be upset either way."

The 27-year-old said he told the panel of his wish to play on the 2016 United States Olympic team and of a baseball card he collected as a boy featuring Mark McGwire.

"The reason that card stands out is because it had the USA logo on it," Granderson said. "Every other team I've played for hasn't had the USA logo on the shirt."

Golf's presenting team brought the trophy presented the last time the sport was played at the Olympics in 1904.

Votaw said its strong points were "speaking with one voice, bringing top players, and worldwide participation," with the sport televised in 216 countries each week.

"We would be able to promote golf in the Olympics and the Olympic movement across that platform every single week," Votaw said. "I think it was favorably received."

The presentation, on behalf of the International Golf Federation, featured video messages from Tiger Woods and Lorena Ochoa, the number one players in the men's and women's game.

Golf's Olympic proposal is for a men's and women's tournament, one in each week of the Games. It has not decided if the events would be played by stroke or match play rules.

Votaw said an IOC observer team could be invited to attend the Masters tournament at Augusta, Georgia.

The program commission, which is chaired by Italian Franco Carraro, will present a report to the IOC executive board.

The board meets next June to make recommendations to the full IOC membership. A simple majority is needed for a sport to be voted onto the program.

The IOC will also select the 2016 host city during the Copenhagen session.