Long Beach this year mourned the loss of an influential city manager, a former newsman, a notable actor, and the sudden death of a former professional baseball player, Sean Burroughs, a Wilson Bruin and Little League Series champion.
Burroughs died May 9 at age 43 in the parking lot at Stearns Champions Park shortly after dropping off his son for a Little League game.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner later determined he died of cardiac arrest due to fentanyl intoxication.
It was an incredibly tragic end to Burroughs’ successful career after being drafted in 2002 by the San Diego Padres and playing for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Minnesota Twins.
Locally, he was the star pitcher on two Little League Championship teams and won an Olympic Gold Medal in 2000.
Burroughs spent five years in the majors and talked candidly with ESPN in a June 2011 interview about his struggles with substance abuse.
Jerry Miller, a venerable city manager who oversaw Long Beach’s Naval exodus and expansion of its port and the 710 Freeway, died July 28 at age 75.
His tenure spanned four mayors and was, for the most part, split between the city’s Economic Development Bureau and the city manager’s office.
He was first hired as a trainee in the city’s Economic Development Bureau’s job training program in 1978. In 1987, he became an officer, and then the bureau’s manager a year later. In June 1998, he was tapped for a deputy city manager role. Miller would serve as Deputy, Assistant and Acting City Manager before taking the top role officially in 2003.
Jim Hankla, a former city manager who hired Miller to his office in 1998, said Miller was a “remarkable man,” and that he “never met anyone” who didn’t like him.
“Without Jerry Miller, we probably wouldn’t have the Port of Long Beach today,” Hankla said.
Other notable deaths this year included Long Beach Poly High School graduate Carl Weathers, a famed actor who portrayed Sylvester Stallone’s boxing nemesis-turned-friend and mentor Apollo Creed in four “Rocky” films. Weathers died at age 76 in February.
The city also mourned a local attorney and newsman, Art Levine, who hosted a talk show “Straight Talk with Art Levine,” that ran for 26 years in 70 Southern California cities. Levine died Sept. 14 at age 85.
Less known on a national level, but a man who won the hearts of a neighborhood in Lakewood Village, Jerry Pryor, a homeless man, died Jan. 17, at age 76. The Post chronicled Pryor’s life in a number of articles of photo essays, as well as the community efforts to help Pryor, who swept streets and lent a hand when he could despite living on the streets.
