SPORTS NOTEBOOK : Ump Travels Halfway Around the World to Find His Home Team

Call it a homecoming of sorts.

Dennis Graham, one of 12 umpires chosen from around the world to work the Little League World Series, couldn’t believe his eyes when he arrived and saw that a Long Beach team was playing.

Graham, an Air Force technician who has been stationed at a NATO base in Germany for five years, graduated from Long Beach Wilson, the alma mater of Long Beach Little League Coach Jeff Burroughs and most other team parents. Graham graduated in 1973, four years after Burroughs.

Little League officials don’t tell umpires which teams have qualified for the championship series. “I didn’t know there was a team from Long Beach in the series until I got here,” Graham said.

But officials also didn’t learn of Graham’s Long Beach ties until late in the week--after he had worked two Long Beach games.

Graham was scheduled to be the second-base umpire in the championship game Saturday. But about an hour before the opening ceremonies, he was informed that he had been pulled from the lineup to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

“Blackballed,” a disappointed Graham remarked after learning of the decision.

As a youth in north Carson, Graham was an All-Star player in the defunct Dominguez Little League. When his parents moved to Long Beach, he eschewed sports at Wilson in favor of surfing, spending most of his spare time in the water. Graham admits to being a little wild in his youth. He wore blond, shoulder-length hair then, a sharp contrast to the close-cropped, military cut he sports today.

Graham joined the Air Force in 1975 and has spent most of the last 17 years overseas. He and his wife, Caryn, have two sons, Cory, 17, and Bobby, 12, who attended the Little League World Series with his father.

While stationed in Germany, Graham got involved in youth baseball on military bases. He has more than nine years’ experience as an umpire. He’s also the commissioner of the Geilenkirchen Little League and the baseball coach at a high school for military dependents. Graham has umpired youth baseball tournaments throughout Europe and was selected to work the World Series after working the Little League European Tournament.

As with all Little League personnel, Graham had to pay for his trip to Williamsport (officials provide lodging). The trip cost about $2,300. Graham said he solicited donations from several corporations in Germany and took a second job as a groundskeeper for baseball fields at the air base.

Those problems were distant memories by the time he got to Williamsport. Speaking in front of the umpire’s room before his first game, an obviously excited Graham waited nervously to get on the field.

“This is a dream come true,” he said. “This is a child’s dream in an adult body.”

What disappointment there was following the championship game late Saturday afternoon after the Philippines defeated Long Beach, 15-4, was tempered by the fact that the Long Beach team had finished No. 2 in the world.

“This was the most positive experience . . . the greatest experience I have ever had in situations like this,” said Debbie Burroughs, wife of Coach Jeff Burroughs, a former major league player. “We went a lot farther than we thought we would.”

Linda Beaver, mother of starting pitcher Ryan Beaver, said: “It’s been fun to watch our kids play. I’m going to miss them. I hope they get together and play some pickup games together, because I feel like they’re all family.”

Said John Beaver, Ryan’s father: “These guys treated us to an indescribable time, day in and day out, providing me with some of the most exciting days of my life.” The team, which was formed in mid-June, had won 21 straight games before losing Saturday.

As the game ended, the Philippine flag was waved by a young man behind the Far East dugout on the third base side. The Long Beach parents stood and applauded. There were a few tears. “This has been an incredible journey,” said Sandy Lewis, wife of manager Larry Lewis. “It was a magnificent carpet ride.”

There were several firsts at the World Series: the first night games and the first round-robin playing format. But there was one “last” that will affect the series in years to come.

Little League officials plan to replace the aging bungalows at International Grove, where coaches, players and umpires have been housed since World War II. A multimillion dollar complex that reportedly will be able to house as many as 20 teams is expected to be completed by the middle of 1993.

The old bungalows are cramped and smelly, with tile floors that look as if they’ve been there since the beginning of time. Some do not have toilet facilities. Players sleep in military-style double bunk beds made of old-fashioned angle iron that has been riveted together. There is little storage space, so the youngsters throw clothes and uniforms on the scuffed floor. Coaches are assigned to the same building but don’t have to sleep in bunk beds.

“It’s certainly old,” said Lewis, the Long Beach manager.

“The dorms are bad,” third baseman Ali Strain-Bay said. “They’re real small. It’s hard to brush your teeth.”

Said pitcher/shortstop Beaver: “These places would have been real good a long time ago. But today they should have bathrooms in the buildings.”

Some parents said the cramped conditions may have contributed to the rapid spread of a flu-like illness that affected four Long Beach players and at least 20 other people during the week.

On the wind-swept, rainy day before the championship game, Long Beach Little League mothers Debbie Burroughs and Debbie Mayfield spent hours cleaning the Long Beach quarters. They folded clothes, picked up uniforms and swept floors.

The new complex may allow Little League to expand its round-robin format to include more teams.

If the format is expanded, a local Little League official wants to see more teams from Southern California make it to the World Series. Teams from California have won the West four straight years and have participated in 13 of the last 19 World Series.

“From what I have seen, there isn’t a team here from the U.S. that is good as what we faced getting here,” said Ken Curnow, during a break in the World Series last week.

Curnow is an administrator in charge of District 38, which encompasses most of Long Beach, Lakewood and parts of Bellflower. He handles the Major Division, for boys ages 10 to 12.

Little League teams play regular seasons within their boundaries, then advance through playoff rounds at the district, sectional and regional levels. Fourteen teams compete in the Western Regional finals in San Bernardino, with only the champion advancing to the World Series. Curnow contends that many Western teams deserved to go to the World Series. He cited Eastview Little League of San Pedro, which lost to Long Beach, 1-0, in sectional play, and Pearl City, Hawaii. Long Beach came from behind to defeat Pearl City, 3-2, in the Western Regional. Eastview played in the World Series in 1989.

According to its figures, Little League has 180,000 teams with 2.6 million participants in 61 countries. Only eight advanced to this year’s finals, four from the United States, and one each from the Far East, Europe, Canada and Latin America.

Curnow also said that if the format isn’t expanded, he would favor all-star teams that represent local communities, not just local leagues. He said that baseball-rich Long Beach, which has five Little League programs, would be a powerhouse year in and year out.

“Can you imagine what that would be like with a team from the entire city?” he said.

But Curnow said he doesn’t expect that idea to catch on with the Little League organization. Just when any type of expansion will take place is speculation. Creighton J. Hale, Little League president and chief executive officer, told the Williamsport Sun-Gazette that he was satisfied with the new round-robin format. He also said in an earlier interview that Little League would follow a slow, controlled-growth policy to ensure fiscal responsibility.

Four players from the Long Beach World Series team will be eligible to return next year, including hard-hitting pitcher Sean Burroughs. Burroughs, who turns 12 later this month, could be joined by second baseman Alex DeFazio and twin outfielders Ken and Chris Miller.

They’ll have to make the tournament team, however, league officials said. All-Stars are generally chosen for their playing ability during a particular season, not on past laurels.

As for the coaching staff, manager Larry Lewis, who did not have a son on the World Series team, would be eligible to return in some capacity, as would Coach Jeff Burroughs. Generally, however, the Long Beach Little League has chosen its tournament coaches from the team that wins the regular season championship. In addition, Lewis and Burroughs, who coached the Pirates to the Major Division championship last June, could end up with separate teams next season. Both would like to return again, they said.