Former MLB Player Sean Burroughs Dies at Age 43; Won Gold Medal at 2000 Olympics

Julia StumbaughMay 10, 2024

Brace Hemmelgarn/Minnesota Twins/Getty Images

Former MLB infielder, two-time Little League World Series champion and Olympic gold medalist Sean Burroughs died Thursday at age 43.

The news was first announced Friday in an Instagram post by the California-based Long Beach Little League.

Burroughs won Little League World Series Championships with the club in 1992 and 1993, and later returned to coach his son there.

Kyle Glaser @KyleAGlaserThe Long Beach Little League has confirmed in a statement on Instagram that Sean Burroughs died yesterday. pic.twitter.com/GYyWI1nlb2

Long Beach Little League president Doug Wittman told Kyle Glaser of the San Bernardino Sun that Burroughs was discovered unresponsive and pronounced dead at the scene in the parking lot outside the Little League stadium where his son was playing.

His mother identified the cause of death as cardiac arrest to the Southern California News Group, Glaser reported.

Burroughs, the son of 1974 AL MVP Jeff Burroughs, played seven seasons in MLB, but his baseball fame began before he reached his teens.

Burroughs threw consecutive no-hitters during the 1993 Little League World Series to lead Long Beach to the title as a 12-year-old in a performance that earned him an appearance on David Letterman’s late night talk show, per Tom Hoffarth of the Daily News and Jim Caple of ESPN.

A first-round selection by the San Diego Padres with the ninth overall pick of the 1998 MLB draft, Burroughs joined gold medal-winning Team USA at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Burroughs made 432 appearances for the Padres between 2002 and 2005, ranking top 10 in the NL with six triples during the 2003 campaign. He then joined the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for the 2006 season.

He spent several seasons battling injuries but returned to play for the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2011 before finishing out his MLB career with the Minnesota Twins in 2012. Burroughs went on to play on minor league teams in Chattanooga, Bridgeport and Long Island until 2017.

Burroughs spent the past two years working as a Little League coach in Long Beach. The club described Burroughs as having a “fun and friendly attitude” with the children he coached, which included his six-year-old son.