UCLA baseball goes global with alumni team

Sporting caps inscribed with an Old English “B” above the bill, baseball players on the diamond of Jackie Robinson Stadium ““ dubbed the old fossils of UCLA baseball by Gary Adams ““ unite for another nine innings of their favorite pastime.

Only this time, the reunion comes under the auspices of a West Coast semi-pro tournament rather than a three-game series against a Pac-10 rival.

And the age differences between teammates contrast a bit more overtly.

For this particular series of games, the Bruin Baseball Alumni Team, composed of athletes from three decades’ worth of UCLA clubs, gathers on their alma mater’s home field to compete against regional semi-pro teams vying for the right to be named champion of the Best of the West tournament.

This scenario occurs more often than one might think, and in fact spans time, land and sea.

Stuka helps build a new Bruin team

Ironically, the alumni team’s formation developed principally from one alumnus’s international baseball experiences.

Martin Stuka, a Bruin who pitched for the university from 1981 to 1983, nurtured the idea of a Bruin alumni team after playing in Europe once his collegiate career ended. He played on a few European ball clubs before serving as the head coach of the French National team for four years.

Stuka’s interest in inter-country interaction developed as a result of his parents’ multi-ethnic backgrounds, which include roots in Poland, Hungary, Italy and England. This fostered an inherent respect for cultural diversity in Stuka. He speaks five languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian and German.

Upon establishing himself within the European baseball community, Stuka sought players from his alma mater to compete with clubs in countries such as France, Italy and Holland.

It was this international exchange that haphazardly led to the idea for the creation of a whole team to compete abroad, coupled with Stuka’s love and respect for everything UCLA.ok

“I don’t exactly know how it happened, but we started saying “˜I think UCLA could beat the national team of Italy or Holland,'” Stuka said. “It was a dream to see how UCLA would fare against these foreign countries.

“When I was playing back in ’83 I looked at the Italian national team and remember thinking “˜I wish UCLA was here because I think they could give them a game.'”

Stuka said that his personal connection to UCLA aided his efforts in forming the alumni team.

“I just really like UCLA,” Stuka said. “What also kept it on was my fondness for Gary Adams, who helped me get placed overseas, (which) was the best experience of my life.”

Adams, legendary head coach of UCLA’s storied baseball program and known affectionately as “Skip” in and around the clubhouse, indirectly shoulders some of the responsibility for the Bruin’s presence throughout Europe.

The Bruin Baseball Alumni Team began to materialize when Stuka’s international experience and UCLA’s internationally recognized baseball program were brought to the attention of the French Baseball Federation.

Having established contacts with the Federation during his tenure as the national team’s head coach, Stuka laid the groundwork for the development of the new squad, returning the favor that Skip had granted him so many years earlier.

“I started Marty going over to France, and he started me going over to France,” Adams said.

The Bruin Baseball Alumni Team took its first steps toward incarnation in 2004 after Adams retired from his post as UCLA’s head baseball coach.

“(The French Baseball Federation) invited me along with Marty to go over there and talk to them about bringing over a UCLA team because they had heard so many good things, (such as) the number of major league players we’ve had,” Adams said. “They (also) wanted a big-name school to be in their international tournament.”

UCLA fit the bill, and in the summer of 2005, the alumni team participated in the French Open, an international tournament for baseball based in Paris.

Although they entered the tournament as the heavy underdog, the Bruin alumni ultimately claimed the tournament title.

The victory solidified the Bruins’ place as a respected international contender, and opened the possibility for bids from other European clubs to test their skills against UCLA.

“I thought France was going to be a one-shot deal,” Adams said.

It turns out more was in store for the Bruin alumni than any gave themselves credit for.

Continued competition

Another Bruin alumnus accompanying the squad to France was Tim Leary, who pitched for the Bruins from 1977 to 1979 before turning pro.

He pitched in the majors for 15 years, the pinnacle coming in 1988 when he won a World Series title with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Leary said his role with the alumni team is essentially dictated by what the head coach wants done.

“Mainly I just help the coach,” Leary said.

During the spring prior to the alumni team’s trip to France, Leary and Stuka traveled to the Bordeaux province together as coaches for Club California, a youth baseball team for which their sons played. The three boys, Teddy and Luc Stuka and Thomas Leary, have served as unofficial batboys for the alumni team over the years.

The following summer in 2006, Italy invited the Bruins to sites in and around Rome to try their bats against Italian professional teams. The Bruins also played against the European all-stars in a game which they won quite handily.

With the Bruins’ continued successes on the international playing field, so continued the invitations for competition.

In 2007, UCLA traveled to Spain to take on the Spanish national team. Jake Melina, Spain’s Olympic head coach and a good friend of Adams, attended and played for UCLA in the late 1960s; he won a ring with the Bruins in 1969.

Melina’s major concern was whether Adams’ team would provide good preparation for the first in a series of tournaments that would determine his team’s qualification for their pre-Olympic tournament feeding into the 2008 games in Beijing.

“Jake wanted to make sure his team was seeing good competition,” Adams said.

And Adams provided. UCLA ended up taking three in a five-game series from Spain. The Bruins’ international endeavors do not end there. This October, a selection of Bruin alumni will head down under to Broad Beach, Australia for the Masters tournament, formerly known as the Senior Pan-Pacific Games.

The participants in this event will be, as Adams put it, “the old folks at home guys.”

Opinions abroad

The reception of UCLA abroad has been favorable so far, mostly as a result of the positive connotation associated with California.

“(California) is L.A., it’s beaches, it’s Schwarzenegger, it’s Hollywood,” Stuka said. “People smile when you say California.”

Playing under the namesake California, as compared with the United States, has prevented what could have resulted in potentially dicey situations, Stuka said.

For UCLA, the reputation it has garnered for itself as a California university and entertainment center with an agreeable reputation is conducive to its role as a diplomat.

“You get to be an ambassador for baseball,” Leary said of the opportunity to travel abroad. “Baseball is what we do, that’s our hook. It’s a low-key sport, a social sport, and people can relax and watch the game.”

Stuka said that overseas, UCLA is known as “OOO-CLA.” The playful nature of the term suggests a ready acceptance of the Bruins, fostered perhaps both by who they are and by where they come from.

Culture and camaraderie

Despite the importance of a positive reception by the international baseball community, what the team takes away from the cosmopolitan exposure what they get is equally if not more important.

“The culture these guys are getting, they can’t trade,” Adams said. “It’s more than just baseball. Don’t get me wrong, the guys want to win, but it’s a combination cultural event and playing baseball against good competition.”

This good competition also, Adams said, helps players with their belief in themselves as athletes.

“Our guys being able to compete against (international teams) and beat them from time to time helps their confidence,” Adams said. “They are the best these countries have.

“Winning more than you lose makes the trip more fun, too.”

Aside from the eye-opening cultural experience and competitive baseball, the alumni also get the opportunity to bond in a setting beyond the sheltered dugouts of Jackie Robinson Stadium.

Stuka said that the alumni team is a great opportunity for him to meet the players who played for UCLA after his tenure in the early 1980s.

The team, he said, provides a good excuse for him to get acquainted with players that were part of the squad in the 1990s and 2000s, and share their stories of their UCLA experiences.

Adams said that players from the 1980s and before will often pal around on the field with other players who just recently graduated, and later in the evening the teammates will sip wine or share a few beers at a small European bar on a street corner in Rome.

“It’s amazing, the camaraderie between the old and young guys,” Adams said. “It seems like they’ve known each other their entire lives because they can talk about their UCLA experience. It’s amazing how they come together.”

Together again

Reconnecting with the program built for Bruins by Bruins provides those seeking to reestablish ties with the perfect opportunity to do so under conditions similar to those experienced during their time at the university ““ except for the fact that most games are not played on American soil.

Adams is still at the forefront of it all, leading a team composed of athletes sampled from his 30 years of captaining UCLA and its baseball program.

Adams taking the lead role in coaching the alumni team has undoubtedly been a factor in drawing Bruin faithful to play another few games in a UCLA uniform.

But there’s something about the blue and gold itself that keeps former student athletes from straying too far from the program born in the hills of Westwood.

“So many times there is senior day and it’s your last chance to put on a uniform,” Stuka said. “And it’s kind of bittersweet.

“But the alumni team allows you to put that uniform back on, and that’s what’s really nice about it. You can keep the old camaraderies that you developed over the years.”

Stuka added that the team’s function is not about returning to the days when the players were in their prime and could run a sub-seven 60. It’s about the school, the friendships, the bonds between teammates.

“It’s not about reliving playing,” Stuka said. “It’s about liking UCLA.”