MEXICO CITY (AP) - Wary of dropping a sport for the first time in 60 years, the International Olympic Committee has put off a debate on kicking baseball, softball and modern pentathlon out of the 2008 games in Beijing.      The IOC voted Friday to delay a decision until after the 2004 Athens Olympics. That sharply reduces the chances the sports would be expelled, in part because it would mean complicated changes for Beijing organizers, athletes and Olympic sponsors.     It also probably rules out the chances of golf or seven-man rugby being added for Beijing, as had been proposed.     The vote at the close of a week of Olympic meetings was a setback for IOC president Jacques Rogge and his plan to shake up the games by making them leaner and more efficient.     A panel appointed by Rogge proposed in August that the three sports be dropped before the 2008 games in Beijing, arguing they had limited global appeal or required costly facilities.     But none of the 39 speakers Friday expressed support for removing the sports and several questioned whether IOC rules permitted it. Several complained that the committee had bungled its figures and failed to consult with the sports' officials or their athletes - though all lavished praise on committee chairman Franco Carraro.     "My experience in the IOC is the more you are congratulated at the start of somebody's speech, the more trouble you're in," said IOC member Dick Pound of Canada, who lost the IOC presidency race to Rogge in 2001.     Officials of the three sports expressed relief, but complained that the uncertainty complicated their relationships with sponsors and supporters.     "The athletes of these sports have a sword of Damocles over their head," said Roque Munoz Pena of the Dominican Republic, who argued for clearly keeping the sports.     "It doesn't make our life easier," modern pentathlon chief Klaus Schormann said, citing uncertainty among his sport's sponsors. "But the clouds are not dark as at the beginning. They are light, feathery clouds."     Softball federation president Don Porter said he was "disappointed that they didn't come to a vote. I think we would probably have prevailed. This kind of keeps us under a shadow."     Rogge said the sports could still be dropped before Beijing.     "It all will depend on how the three federations perform in Athens," he said. "The decision could affect 2008 or 2012. No date is fixed."     But IOC members - who repeatedly expressed concern about athletes' need to plan their training and schedules years in advance - said that was unlikely.     "They're in for 2008," Canadian member Paul Henderson said. "Nobody's going to kick out a sport in 2005. These guys are in until 2012, there's no question about it."     The last sport dropped from the Summer Olympics was polo in 1936.     Baseball has been a medal sport since 1992. Softball, a women-only event, was added in 1996. Modern pentathlon, a five-sport discipline created by modern Olympics founder Pierre de Coubertin, was introduced in 1912.     Israeli member Alex Gilady criticized major league baseball for failing to release top players for the Olympics. "Major league baseball so far is part of the problem and not part of the solution," he said.     The IOC Executive Committee still is due to rule next year on trimming events that are part of other sports. Recommended for cuts were race walking and at least part of the wrestling, equestrian and rowing competitions.