Long Beach Gets Reason to Celebrate : Sports: Team loses title game of Little League World Series, but the youngsters’ achievement lifts the spirits of a city enduring hard times.

Forget the Long Beach of adults, lately a cheerless place where the Queen Mary is rusting away, McDonnell Douglas is manufacturing pink slips and the Navy is charting a course out of town.

The self-proclaimed “International City” was feeling some civic pride Saturday, thanks to 13 residents who have not even finished middle school. The Long Beach Little League All-Stars represented the United States in the 46th championship game of the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa.

The local boys lost, 15-4, to Mindanao, Philippines, but the final tally did not seem to matter much in a city desperate for a reason to feel good. Win or lose, the 11- and 12-year-olds had thrust Long Beach into the world spotlight, and for a change, the attention was welcome back home.

“It is good for Long Beach, something good in this world of bad,” said Dan Dorros, a city Little League coach, who was among 100 well-wishers outside an overflowing Long Beach restaurant where the game was shown live via satellite.

Inside, Mayor Ernie Kell watched as the home team fell behind by seven runs even before the local sluggers had a chance to bat. Some of the 350 fans jammed into Cirivello’s Restaurant grew disheartened, but no one lost sight of the boys’ bigger achievement.

“It makes us feel real good about ourselves,” said Kell, whose city plans a parade for the kids on Wednesday. “These kids have done something that elected officials have not been able to do, and that is to make this town feel good about itself. We are very proud.”

To get to the World Series, the Long Beach team won 21 games in a row, never losing a game after it was chosen from among about a dozen junior-level clubs early this summer. The boys beat squads from Pearl City, Hawaii, to Anchorage, Alaska, before qualifying for the eight-team Williamsport tournament by pounding San Ramon Valley, Calif., 11-3, in San Bernardino just over a week ago.

Cirivello’s was the team’s favorite pizza hangout, so it seemed only appropriate that the restaurant would play host to the hundreds of fans too restless to wait for a tape-delayed broadcast of the game. With five satellite dishes and 40 television screens, the restaurant was Little League heaven.

Cirivello’s was also the birthplace to the Long Beach club’s rather odd talisman, which until Saturday seemed to be working some pretty amazing magic. Shaelen Burroughs, the 6-year-old sister of the team’s batting star, Sean Burroughs, won a tiny troll doll in the eatery’s game room during the divisional playoffs.

Shaelen presented it to her brother, and before long, the homely toys with multicolored hairdos assumed supernatural significance for a team gripped by superstition. (Sean has been known to pound home plate with his bat to summon the home run gods, and one of the team’s coaches has worn the same socks at 47 straight games.)

Several players kept trolls in the dugout, with Sean parting the hair of his doll four different ways for good luck. The fascination grew, and by Saturday, scores of fans in Long Beach and Williamsport stroked their dolls. Kell strung a troll in boxing gloves around his neck. Others waved placards bearing troll images.

But not even the trolls could help Saturday. Four Long Beach players were stricken with flu-like symptoms that had swept the Little League compound last week, devastating the German team and forcing two people to be hospitalized. Several Long Beach parents also complained of feeling ill after the game.

Sean was among the worst hit. Scheduled as the starting shortstop and leadoff batter, the 11-year-old clutch hitter woke up with an upset stomach and was taken out of the lineup. After seeing a doctor, the boy made it to the field minutes before the game began, but he never fully recovered and managed one hit.

“This was like a bummer of a day,” said his mother, Debbie Burroughs.

Even with the disappointment, Burroughs said, the week in Williamsport was a dream come true for Sean and the other boys. “This was the most positive experience,” she said. “We went a lot further than we thought we would.”

Dane Mayfield, who played right field, also looked beyond Saturday’s final score.

“It’s been a blast,” the 12-year-old said. “I like it here. I wish I could stay more.”

Back at Cirivello’s, owner Dominic Picarelli was left with the task of removing a large banner draped outside the restaurant that boasted, “Home of the Long Beach All Stars World Champions.”

Although things did not turn out that way, one local Little League official was already talking about next year.

Times staff writer Dean E. Murphy in Los Angeles wrote this story. Johnson reported from Long Beach and McLeod from Williamsport, Pa.

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