Foreign Legion Has a Field Day

Patrick Harris learned Saturday what young U.S. baseball players have known about for years: Taiwanese boys take their sports seriously.

The country that has dominated the Little League World Series also swings a mean stick in field hockey, as evidenced by Taiwan’s 6-0 shellacking of the Ventura County-based Bulldogs in an under-12 division game in the 25th California Cup at Moorpark College.

Harris, 11, of Moorpark, was the hero of his team’s morning game, scoring all of the Bulldogs’ goals in a 4-1 victory over the Toronto-based Super Tykes. But when it came time to play Taiwan later in the day, the Bulldogs folded fast.

“It was hard,” Harris said. “[Taiwan] has an all-star team and we’re just like a regular team. . . . I just couldn’t get through them.”

The result came as no surprise to Harris’ father, Dave, who has watched Taiwan dominate youth competition since first sending teams to the California Cup 10 years ago. Dave’s older brother, Tom, is the founder of the tournament that has attracted 92 teams from six nations this Memorial Day weekend.

“If we took an all-star team to Taiwan, we could probably compete with them,” Dave Harris said. “But with a local team, they’re killing us.”

The international flavor of the California Cup was on full display Saturday, with teams from around the world and across the United States competing on eight fields in 10 age and skill divisions. The tournament continues today and concludes Monday.

Taiwan is attempting to win its third consecutive under-12 title. Coach Yujen Tsai, speaking through an interpreter, said his team is selected from the best players in the central-Taiwan city of Changhua and has a four-man coaching staff “like [an] NBA team.”

“Because of the population density, we have more people to choose from,” Tsai said. “We can select the best.”

Although the Bulldogs were shut out, they didn’t go home empty-handed. As is their custom, the Taiwanese presented their opponents with gifts--red key chains made from a silk-like material.

Walt Robbins, chairman of the California Cup organizing committee, said the tournament takes pride in fostering good will between local and foreign players. The event has come a long way since its inception in 1972, when three local teams were joined by one from Germany and two from Canada. From that six-team field, the California Cup has grown to become the premier invitational field hockey tournament held annually in the United States.

“We’re known all over the world,” said Robbins, a Camarillo resident.

Robbins found out just how well-known one year when he was in Milan, Italy, with the U.S. national team.

“I had put together a brochure to advertise our tournament and I saw some guys from the Austrian national team,” he said. “I went over and said, ‘I’d like to talk to you about this tournament.’ And they looked at the cover of the brochure and said, ‘Oh, we know this tournament.’ ”

It was under similar circumstances that a group of Germans entered teams in the men’s and women’s competitive divisions this year.

During a tour of Europe last year, the U.S. national team stayed in Berlin in the clubhouse of a field hockey club. Tom Harris, who was accompanying the national team, extended an invitation to the Germans to attend the California Cup. They took him up on it, arriving in Los Angeles last weekend to get in some sightseeing before the tournament.

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On an adjacent field, Sanjay Jaggi of Los Altos was trying to catch his breath after coming out of a game for the Marin Mavericks, a competitive division team.

Jaggi, 32, who is originally from India where field hockey is one of the country’s most popular sports, said he enjoys coming back to the California Cup year after year.

“It’s always been really great,” he said.

Unlike other groups, though, Jaggi says his team plays mostly for fun.

“We’re primarily social players, as you can tell,” he said, still trying to catch his breath.

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