Former big league infielder Sean Burroughs passed away this week at just 43 years of age, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports. Tragically, the former Little League World Series hero and No. 9 overall draft pick collapsed while coaching his son’s little league game.
The son of former No. 1 overall draft pick, two-time All-Star, and 1974 American League MVP Jeff Burroughs, Sean clearly had baseball in his DNA. He starred on the mound and at the plate while leading his Long Beach team to consecutive Little League World Series wins and eventually went on to be selected by the Padres with the ninth overall pick in the 1998 draft. Baseball America ranked him among the sport’s top-100 prospects in each of the next four years, including top-10 rankings each year from 2000-02. Burroughs represented the United States in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney and won a Gold Medal.
Burroughs made his big league debut as the Padres’ third baseman on April 2, 2002 — collecting two hits in his first taste of MLB action. He struggled through the season’s first two months but returned from a Triple-A assignment to hit .377/.433/.410 in 67 September plate appearances. Burroughs was the Padres’ regular third baseman in 2003-04, hitting a combined .292/.350/.384 in 1142 trips to the plate. He struggled at the plate again in 2005 and was traded to the Devil Rays in a 2005-06 offseason deal that sent right-hander Dewon Brazelton back to the Friars.
Burroughs appeared in only eight games for the Rays plus another 37 with their Triple-A affiliate in Durham. He was out of baseball entirely for several years after that and had since candidly spoken about a subsequent spiral of drug addiction and alcoholism. In a heart-wrenching interview with ESPN’s Jim Caple in 2011, Burroughs described the harrowing experience of spending years living in cheap Las Vegas motels, eating out of trash cans and abusing virtually any substance he could find. “I would just try to fill myself with as much substances as I could, legally or illegally,” he acknowledged.
Despite that low point — which Burroughs likened to the Nicolas Cage film Leaving Las Vegas — Burroughs’ baseball career had a second act. He cleaned his life up, got a second chance from late D-backs GM Kevin Towers (who’d drafted Burroughs with the Padres), and played in 78 games with the 2011 Diamondbacks. Burroughs inked a minor league deal with the Twins that offseason and wound up appearing in ten games with Minnesota as well. Those would prove to be the final games of his MLB career, but he spent the 2014-17 seasons playing between several teams in the independent Atlantic League, as well as in Venezuelan Winter ball and in the Mexican League.
Burroughs’ big league career lasted all of 528 games and saw him bat .278/.335/.355. Despite that modest performance, he’ll be remembered as a remarkable talent — one who was thrust into a national spotlight at an early age and racked up more accolades than most players accrue in a lifetime before he even set foot on a major league field. His tragic passing will bring about immeasurable “what ifs,” but Burroughs also stands as a beacon of perseverance. Overcoming his yearslong battle with addiction to return to the major leagues and spend more than a half decade in pro ball is inspirational in and of itself — the type of story that transcends baseball and has the power to impact a far broader audience.
We at MLBTR offer our condolence to the Burroughs family and to his friends, former teammates and coaches, and countless fans around the world.
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