He Is Getting Major League Attention : Little League: With son Sean on the Long Beach team, Jeff Burroughs is getting his share of the limelight going into the title game.

The last time a team from Southern California won the Little League World Series, Jeff Burroughs, now a former American League most valuable player, was still perfecting his home run swing at Stearns Park in Long Beach.

That was in 1963. Burroughs went on to play for 16 seasons in the major leagues and hit 240 home runs before retiring in 1985.

But he never left the diamond altogether. Today at 1 p.m., weather permitting, he will be in the third base coaching box for the Long Beach All-Stars when they play Mindanao, Philippines, in the 46th championship game of the Little League World Series.

Burroughs’ 11-year-old son, Sean, will be the starting shortstop and leadoff hitter today for Long Beach, which has won 21 consecutive games. There’s a 50% chance of rain as remnants of Hurricane Andrew spill over the Northeast.

On and off the field, the focus this week has turned toward the unusual comeback of Sean’s dad, Jeff, who at 41 is experiencing something he never saw much of as a pro: winning. He was the MVP of the American League in 1974 with the Texas Rangers, but the Rangers seldom won. He also spent time with Oakland, Atlanta and Seattle, none of which did too well while he was with them. In his final season, he was a bit player for Toronto, which won the American League Eastern Division title.

The elder Burroughs arrived here last Sunday as simply another coach. But as the week went on he became more visible.

It started last Sunday, when a couple of kids asked Burroughs to autograph some of his old baseball cards during a break in practice here in the middle of the Pennsylvania countryside.

“Don’t know where they dug those up,” he said.

Since then, Jeff Burroughs baseball cards--there are several versions, some of them still wrapped in plastic--have popped up everywhere, from the trading booths that flourish behind Lamade Stadium, to those belonging to little kids who besiege him wherever he goes. On Thursday, he was interviewed on national cable TV and by that afternoon Burroughs was a celebrity again.

Jeff’s wife, Debbie, attributes her husband’s popularity to his making it a point to answer every fan letter he receives. She said even now, seven years after retirement, he gets 15-20 fan letters a week at their Long Beach home.

Here, Burroughs has remained low-key, obliging every autograph seeker with a pleasant word. Whenever he can, though, he turns the attention toward the Long Beach players. Coaching in the Little League World Series, he said, has been one of the biggest thrills in his baseball career.

“Doing this for the kids seems more important than just doing it for yourself,” he said.

After leaving Toronto in 1985, Burroughs returned to Long Beach so he and Debbie could raise a family. Sean was born in 1979, when Jeff was with the Athletics, and attended a preschool in the Alamitos Bay area. The Burroughs met several families with boys the same age and the boys eventually joined the Long Beach Little League.

Three of the boys from that preschool are on the all-star team. Many of the others’ parents either attended Wilson High with the elder Burroughs or were there at about the same time. Some, like team Manager Larry Lewis, who does not have a child on the team, graduated from rival Millikan High.

Burroughs, naturally, was roped into becoming a coach at Stearns Park almost as soon as he signed up his oldest son, 12-year-old Scott.

“He’s a very good coach for these kids,” said Don Sappington, a Little League district official from Long Beach. “He’s real laid-back. He doesn’t put any pressure on them.”

In his Long Beach Little League days, Jeff pitched and played shortstop. His son is a chip off the old block, right down to his husky build and the flowing blond locks that spill out of his baseball cap. He is 10-0 as a pitcher and has hit 16 home runs. Thursday afternoon, he threw a three-hitter and struck out nine--Little League games are six innings--in a 1-0 victory over Nottingham of Hamilton Square, N.J.

Jeff learned the hard way that parents--no matter who they are--have a difficult time working with their own children.

“Obviously, he won’t admit that Dad is right about anything,” Jeff said of Sean.

Then there is this troll doll thing, which really seems to bug Jeff. Spurred by Sean’s fascination with the tiny dolls with the multicolored hairdos, Long Beach fans displayed them in droves for the national cable television audience Thursday. The younger Burroughs keeps at least one in the dugout, parting its hair four different ways for good luck. After a 0-2 start at the plate in his first game here Monday, he put the trolls face down on the bench and then slapped a couple of singles. In another game he pounded the plate with his bat, calling for the home run gods to deliver, then doubled in the winning run.

“Frankly it’s a little embarrassing, but there again, he’s only 11 years old,” Jeff said.

Most Little League players in this division are 13.

Jeff Burroughs made a deal with some of the other coaches who found themselves in the same position. He coaches their children and they coach his.

“It gets so frustrating when you hear something from Mom and Dad,” said assistant coach Denny Mayfield, whose son, Dane, is on the team. “But Jeff has been great. The kids love him, they respect him. He’s a retired ballplayer. They know he knows what he is talking about.”

Burroughs has been quick all week to put this series into perspective.

“These are just 11- and 12-year-old kids,” he said.

The Long Beach youngsters, he insisted, probably have not let the significance of it hit them yet, and may not realize the full extent of their accomplishments, win or lose today, for several years. They’d rather be trading pins or in the pool at the International Grove, where the players are staying.

The events here, however, appear to have sunk in for Burroughs. He’s one game away from his the first title by a Southern California Little League team since Granada Hills defeated Stratford, Conn., 2-1, in 1963.

In those days, Burroughs was starring on the same Long Beach baseball fields where his son is a standout today.