QUICK RECOVERY : Less Than a Month After Brain Seizure, Cougars’ Olerud Gearing Up for Baseball

PULLMAN, Wash. —  John Olerud was back on his feet and back on campus at Washington State University last week, as fascinated by the surprisingly good fit of an old pair of jeans, it seemed, as with his health and well-being.

“I just about threw them away,” the easygoing Olerud said of the pants. “Good thing I kept them.”

Olerud, a junior who was Baseball America’s college baseball player of the year last season, had returned about 15 pounds lighter from a 2-week stay at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane.

Other than the loss of weight, though, he showed no ill effects after a brain seizure last month caused him to collapse while jogging.

In fact, his doctors say that Olerud, 20, suffered no brain damage and probably won’t even miss much of the baseball season, which starts for Washington State this month.

“He beat the odds tremendously,” said Dr. Scott Carlson, a neurologist at the Rockwood Clinic in Spokane. “He’s probably not going to have any problems at all.”

The seizure was caused, Carlson said, by blood in the spinal fluid from a blood vessel that leads into Olerud’s brain. Known technically as a Grade 1 subarachnoid hemorrhage, the bleeding was caused by a weakened vessel wall, doctors believe.

In simplest terms, it was “a leak in my head that kind of patched itself up,” Olerud said.

What caused it?

Doctors aren’t certain.

“Usually, it’s something that you may be born with, sort of a weak spot on an artery,” said Olerud’s father, also named John, a medical professor at the University of Washington. “Eighty percent of the time, you’ll find an aneurysm where you actually find a defect, or a vascular malformation.

“Those sorts of abnormalities of the blood vessels are the things that most often result in this kind of bleeding. But, in this case, none of those things were found.”

More than 15% of the people who experience this type of problem will have no apparent source for the bleeding, Carlson said.

“And those are the ones who have the best prognosis as far as whether or not it’s likely to happen again,” Olerud’s father said. “They are also the people who don’t have to have surgery.”

Carlson described the condition as not uncommon, saying that it affects about 1 in 10,000 people.

“That may seem like a small number, but it’s not,” he said. “I see several cases a year like this.”

If a defect had been found and surgery required, the chances of recurrence for Olerud would have been about 1 in 3, his father said.

As it is, he is only slightly more at risk than the average person, Carlson said.

“But after 4 or 5 years, that risk drops down to where you or I are,” he said. “The risk of recurrence is very low.”

And so, Olerud is free to pursue a blossoming career.

Major league scouts have described the 6-foot 5-inch left-hander as one of the most promising two-way prospects in history, almost equally adept as a pitcher or hitter.

“In terms of a guy that is more than one-dimensional, he’s about as good as there’s ever been in college baseball,” said Allan Simpson, editor of Baseball America.

Said Ben Wade, director of scouting for the Dodgers: “I would say (Dave) Winfield was the last college player who was as outstanding both ways.”

In its college preview issue, Baseball America projected Olerud as the No. 2 choice in this year’s draft. Only pitcher Ben McDonald of Louisiana State is more highly regarded, the publication said.

Last season, Olerud was the No. 3 hitter in major college baseball and was 15-0 as a pitcher with a 2.49 earned-run average and 113 strikeouts in 122 2/3 innings.

A designated hitter or first baseman when he wasn’t on the mound, he batted .464 and also led the Cougars with 23 home runs and 81 runs batted in.

“The guy reminds you of Frank Viola as a pitcher,” said Washington State Coach Chuck (Bobo) Brayton, who also coached Olerud’s father, an All-American catcher for the Cougars in 1965 and a former Angel farmhand. “He’s got kind of an easy motion, and the ball just moves in on you.

“On the other hand, he reminds me an awful lot of Wally Joyner as a hitter and first baseman. Everything’s done with ease and grace. He just barely swings the bat, and the ball’s over the wall.”

Olerud is more highly regarded as a hitter, Simpson said.

“If he was strictly a pitcher, he would still have an outside chance to be drafted in the first round,” Simpson said. “I think he could get to the big leagues as either, but I think he’d be a more dynamic major leaguer as a hitter.”

All of that seemed moot on the morning of Jan. 11.

Olerud, who had gone through a 30-minute aerobics workout and had spent another half-hour lifting weights, was jogging with teammate Quentin Poil in Washington State’s Hollinberry Fieldhouse.

“He told me he hadn’t run during Christmas break, and he fell in behind me,” Poil said.

Poil later turned a corner and saw Olerud unconscious, sprawled across the track.

“I ran about 6 laps and was pretty tired, so I decided that was enough for me,” Olerud said. “I started slowing down to stop, and I felt all this pressure in my head. And my legs felt kind of heavy.

“The last thing I remember, I was on my feet and looking down at my feet and going, ‘Whoa, this is kind of a bad headache.’ ”

The next thing he remembered after that, he was in Spokane. He had been taken by helicopter from Pullman Memorial Hospital.

Brayton was especially shaken.

“None of us know when the Great Reaper’s going to take a swing at us,” he said.

In 1970, Todd Sprecher, also a Washington State baseball player, died of head injuries suffered in a gymnastics class.

“He had about the same symptoms that John had,” Brayton said. “It was a brain injury. We flew him to Spokane and never saw him again. We flew John to Spokane the same way.”

Olerud, though, was unfazed.

“I didn’t ever really have a feeling like I was going to die,” he said. “I didn’t even really ever have a feeling that this was going to be something that would be particularly damaging.

“I really wasn’t that anxious about it . . . (thinking,) ‘Oh my God, this is it,’ or anything like that--probably because I was just naive and figured it was just a leaky hose in my head.”

His father’s medical knowledge helped soothe him, he said.

“The doctors would come in and be talking about stuff, and my father could understand them,” Olerud said. “And then he could explain it to me. And he had time to stay and answer questions, too.”

The elder Olerud explained to his son that the vessel had bled for about 3 1/2 minutes longer than it otherwise would have because his blood had been thinned by aspirin. Olerud had taken about 9 to 12 aspirin a day for 2 weeks because of a stiff elbow--a common dosage for inflammation, his father said.

While hospitalized, Olerud experienced severe headaches, Carlson said. Olerud, though, described his ordeal as no worse than the flu.

“It’s been really hard on my folks, but I don’t feel like it’s been that tough on me,” he said. “I don’t know if it was through being naive or what, but I wasn’t really all that nervous as far as worrying if my baseball career was over.

“And I didn’t really go through that much discomfort.”

Olerud returned to class this week. In 10 days, he will be able to resume hitting and throwing. Then, after meeting with his doctors, he probably will be able to start running again the week before the Cougars’ opening-day doubleheader, Feb. 25 against Central Washington.

His father said that he will encourage his son not to push himself and that he probably won’t play much until about a month into the season.

“I’m just going to see how I feel,” Olerud said. “I don’t want to come back early and hurt my teammates by not playing up to par.”

Considering the circumstances, his presence alone may lift them.