Sean Burroughs, who pitched back-to-back no-hitters within the Little League World Collection in main his Lengthy Seaside crew to consecutive championships and who then adopted his father into the main leagues, died Thursday. He was 43.
Burroughs went into cardiac arrest at Stearns Park in Lengthy Seaside, the place he had dropped off his son earlier than a sport, the Lengthy Seaside Press-Telegram reported. He couldn’t be revived and was pronounced useless on the scene.
Burroughs was one of many coaches of his son’s crew. In an announcement, Lengthy Seaside Little League referred to as Burroughs “a legend in LBLL and the baseball group.”
“We could have our household in our ideas and prayers throughout this time,” the assertion learn, “and attempt to finish the season enjoying the form of baseball Coach Sean can be happy with.”
The Burroughs title means baseball royalty in Lengthy Seaside. Sean and his father, Jeff, every performed at Wilson Excessive. Every was drafted within the first spherical: Jeff by the Washington Senators in 1969; Sean by the San Diego Padres in 1998.
Jeff, the 1974 American League most useful participant with the Texas Rangers, performed 16 years within the majors. In his e book chronicling the 1992-93 Little League World Collection champions, a crew with Jeff as its coach and Sean as its star, Jeff wrote: “I believe I’m higher recognized now for being Sean Burroughs’ father than he’s recognized for being Jeff Burroughs’ son.”
Lengthy Seaside Little League coach Jeff Burroughs congratulates his son, Sean, as he rounds third base after hitting a house run in opposition to Richmond, Va., within the Little League World Collection on Aug. 24, 1993.
(Carol Francavilla / Related Press)
Sean appeared on the David Letterman present at 12 and in Sports activities Illustrated at 21. He received a gold medal, enjoying for Tom Lasorda and Workforce USA within the 2000 Olympics. He made his main league debut in 2002 and, two years later, had the walkoff hit that made the Padres winners within the first regular-season sport performed at Petco Park.
Three years later, he was out of baseball, crushed down by what he later instructed ESPN was an absence of need and eventual substance abuse. When he devoted himself to getting again in form and pursuing one other shot at baseball, the Arizona Diamondbacks supplied him a minor league contract in 2011.
By the point the 12 months was out, he had made it again to the majors.
“It’s been an unimaginable journey. It actually has,” he instructed ESPN. “It was only a 12 months in the past I used to be consuming cheeseburgers out of rubbish cans and dwelling in Motel 6.”
After restricted enjoying time with the Diamondbacks in 2011 and the Minnesota Twins in 2012, Sean performed for a Dodgers minor league affiliate in 2013, and performed 4 years in an unbiased league earlier than doing what his father had executed earlier than him: returning to Lengthy Seaside and training his son.
That was a full-circle second, for a metropolis and a nation that may bear in mind Sean finest because the star on his hometown Little League squad, along with his personal father as coach.
As Mike Guardabascio of 562.org recalled Friday, Jeff had written this in his e book: “Sean got here off the mound after one in all his no-hitters at Williamsport and walked proper into my arms. I’ll carry that reminiscence eternally, however you’ll not discover that second recorded on the rating sheets. They haven’t but devised a scorekeeping image which means ‘one nice child hugging one dad with a lump in his throat.’”
