LITTLE LEAGUE WORLD SERIES : Long Beach Opens Defense of Championship

Long Beach opens defense of its world title at 5 p.m. PDT today in the opening round of the 47th Little League World Series against Hamilton, Ohio, the Central Region champion.

Long Beach is the first team to win consecutive Western Regional titles. It was declared the World Series champion last year after it was determined that a Philippine team that defeated Long Beach in the championship game, 15-4, had used overage players. Four players from the 1992 Long Beach team return.

One of those, Sean Burroughs, son of former American League player of the year Jeff Burroughs, is expected to pitch. Sean Burroughs is 11-0 in all-star competition and is hitting .698 with 14 home runs and 34 runs batted in. Jeff Burroughs is the team’s coach.

Today’s other games pit Bedford, N.H., against Richmond, Va., at 8 a.m., North Vancouver, Canada, against David Chiriqui, Panama, at 11, and Kaiserslautern, Germany, a team made up of children of U.S. Military personnel, against Garapan City, Saipan, at 2.

A round-robin format will continue through Wednesday, with the regional finals set for Thursday and the championship final to be played Saturday on network television.