Coming Back to Earth : Little League: Reality slowly sets in for Northridge entourage after thrill-packed run to World Series.

NORTHRIDGE —  The road to Williamsport, Pa., was clearly marked for the Northridge Little League team.

Destination: World Series.

The road home has been one long parade, a whirlwind of accolades after the team won the United States championship.

Yet precisely what awaits the team is much less clear. And far less glamorous.

Disneyland, Magic Mountain and Universal Studios were stops this week for the players. Jay Leno greets them Monday.

But when the amusement park rides and talk show appearances end, a group of 11- and 12-year-old boys who captured the hearts of a nation will be left to begin junior high school and cope with creeping adolescence.

Their accomplishments will be old news, yet their lives are only beginning. The Long Beach Little League team that won World Series championships in 1992 and ’93 is something of ancient history-- and those players are just starting high school.

“The adjustment has been easier for some than for others,” said Jeff Burroughs, the Long Beach coach. “It’s hard to tell with kids, but I think most of them knew in the back of their minds that the attention wouldn’t last.”

Concerns more pressing than the fading flame of fame face the Northridge parents.

They racked up enormous credit card bills paying their way up and down that joyful road to Williamsport, Pa. They returned to homes still damaged from the Jan. 17 earthquake, damage recounted in colorful detail last week by the national media, but damage no closer to repair.

“We’ll all get back to normal eventually, but nobody wants to think about that now,” said Greg Frost, father of outfielder Michael Frost, as the team was being honored Monday at the Northridge Little League complex.

For some families, reality has already nibbled.

“Our telephone service had been turned off when we got home,” said Lynn Wallis, mother of third baseman Gregg. “Two weeks away, and this. I can’t believe it.”

Not until the attention shuts off--and it will, like a light switch--do the players begin life after Little League.

Ideas of what even the immediate future holds are hazy at best.

“I’m just taking this as it comes,” Michael Frost said. “I really haven’t thought much about school, or anything.”

The pleasant surprises keep coming. Matt Cunningham, who played catcher, center field and pitcher, was approached Monday by an elderly man who introduced himself as Dick Bank, a former major league scout. “I came out here to shake your hand, son, and tell you I believe you will be in the big leagues some day,” Bank said.

Many of the players ooze talent. Yet the game they played better than any team in the nation will offer new challenges. All but the two 11-year-olds will move up to Junior League, played under regular baseball rules on a field close to regulation size.

Goodby field of dreams. The Northridge Junior League facility is a field of bumps and bad hops, a parched patch of dirt and grass nicknamed The Sandlot.

“I’m looking forward to it, it’ll be fun,” said Justin Gentile, who pitched the World Series final.

Gentile and other pitchers have much to learn, such as holding runners close to bases properly. Catchers must throw out base stealers, fielders must position themselves differently with runners on base, batters must learn the hit-and-run play. And everyone must learn to lead off and steal bases.

That part--learning the game--will be fun.

Less enjoyable will be the inevitable needling--”This isn’t Little League anymore”--by people motivated by envy. Chris Drury, who pitched the Little League World Series championship game five years ago for Trumbull, Conn., said those comments grew tiresome.

“They were just jealous,” he told Sport Illustrated. “Most guys would trade their right arm to have a chance to do what we did.”

Drury is an example of how dramatically goals can change. He no longer plays organized baseball but will attend Boston University this fall on a hockey scholarship.

The Trumbull team held a five-year reunion recently, something City Councilman Hal Bernson urged the Northridge players to do when he congratulated them Monday at the Northridge field complex.

Another speaker, Seattle Mariner infielder Torey Lovullo, offered advice that the players might well hold dear as they close the book on Little League.

“If you pursue everything in life with the passion and intensity you showed during this tournament, you will be successful,” he said.

The players listened intently, and when the ceremony was completed they were besieged once again by reporters and autograph seekers. The bubble had yet to burst.