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Remembering Sean Burroughs, Who Took Long Beach Little League To The Mountaintop In The 1990s, Twice
Sean Burroughs #32 of the San Diego Padres fields a ball on June 2, 2004 at Petco Park in San Diego, California.
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If you lived in Long Beach in the early 1990s, you are going to know the name of Sean Burroughs. He was the chubby kid with the big arm and an equally big personality who took the Long Beach Little League to winning back-to-back world championships.
Burroughs died last Thursday at the age of 43. His mother told the Southern California News Group the cause was cardiac arrest.
Long Beach in the 1990s
To understand Burrough's impact on the community, former Long Beach Press-Telegram reporter Billy Witz said we need to understand the socioeconomic reality of Long Beach at the time.
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"It's a big city, over 500,000 people, but it's definitely got the small town feel, and that was a really rough time in the city," Witz said, who now covers college sports for the New York Times. "The economy was in bad shape. The Naval Shipyard had closed. McDonnell Douglas was hemorrhaging jobs. And in April of '92, Long Beach was hit with the Rodney King riot."
Then came a rally point for the city months later, in the form of a bunch of kids from Long Beach who became champions of the World Series, led by power pitcher and hitter Sean Burroughs.
The wunderkind
"He was just the star and he he had a personality for it. He didn't seem fazed," said Witz.
Burroughs was the son of MLB player Jeff Burroughs, who coached Sean and the other Long Beach kids in the Little League. Just like his dad, the younger Burroughs knew how to play.
"Here was a young kid who was 11 or 12, just throwing the ball by people, he was unhittable as a pitcher and smacking balls over the fence," Witz said.
A year later, Burroughs and Long Beach Little League notched a back-to-back win — the first team from the United States to accomplish the feat.
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"Even though they had mostly a new team, they ended up going back and winning it again which was remarkable," Witz said. "It's crazy to think about it. There were parades down Long Beach for this team of 11 and 12-year-old kids."
After the win, Burroughs went on Late Show with David Letterman to represent the team.
After his Little League success, Burroughs went on to win a Gold Medal with Team USA at the 2000 Olympics and went on to play briefly for Major League Baseball. Eventually, Burroughs returned to Long Beach to coach the city's Little League team.
The Southern California News Group reported that Burroughs was found unconscious at Stearns Park in Long Beach, after he had dropped off his 6-year-old son for a Little League game.
"Long Beach is a sports town with a rich sports history, especially in baseball," said Witz, pointing to Hall of famer Tony Gwynn having grown up in Long Beach, as well as players like Chase Utley and Bob Lemon. "There's gotta be a half a dozen guys in the big leagues now, and yet I don't think anybody [who] resonated with people in the city like this group of 11 and 12-year-old kids did those two summers."
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