Ted Williams OK After Heart Surgery

BOSTON (AP) â€” Ted Williams, baseball's last .400 hitter, did well during a nine-hour operation on his failing heart valves, his surgeons said. <br><br>The 82-year-old Hall of Famer underwent surgery

Tuesday, January 16th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

BOSTON (AP) â€” Ted Williams, baseball's last .400 hitter, did well during a nine-hour operation on his failing heart valves, his surgeons said.

The 82-year-old Hall of Famer underwent surgery Monday at New York Presbyterian Hospital's Weill Cornell Medical Center, The Boston Globe reported.

``I think things went well,'' Dr. Wayne Isom, head of the surgical team, said in Tuesday's newspaper. ``The next 48 hours is the critical period. It'll be touch and go, but I'm an optimist. I think we'll pull him through it.''

Williams was in intensive care, listed in critical condition overnight, and was expected to remain in the hospital 10 to 14 days, the Globe reported. The hospital has declined to give out information at the family's request.

Isom replaced the mitral valve with a tissue valve and performed a ring annuloplasty to repair the tricuspid vale. He said the operation was unusually long because of excessive bleeding caused by medication Williams had been taking.

``The big question was how well his left ventricle would take the operation,'' Isom told The Globe. ``He did well. First you get the operation done, then you get the heart to take over, then you check for bleeding, irregular heart rate or heart failure.''

New York Presbyterian's chief of cardiovascular pathophysiology, Jeffrey Borer, was one of 13 doctors on the surgical team.

``I would say the results are as good as we could have hoped for. He tolerated everything pretty well,'' Borer told the Globe.

Monday ``was a hard day,'' Williams' son, John Henry Williams, told the Globe. ``I kissed Dad on the forehead at 2:10 and didn't get that call until 9:45. As time went on, it was unnerving but I had a gut feeling that things would be OK.''

Williams had a pacemaker inserted at Shands Hospital in Gainesville, Fla., in November, but has continued to have shortness of breath because of the leaky valve, doctors said. Williams had two strokes in the 1990s.

Williams was at home in Hernando, Fla., until last Thursday when he entered Citrus Memorial in Inverness with what cardiologist Rick Kerensky described as ``deterioration of his cardiovascular and neurological status.'' He was transferred to Shands later that day and taken to New York on Sunday.

Johnny Pesky, one of Williams' teammates in the 1940s and 1950s, said Monday he had he heard about Williams' most recent heart problems Sunday.

``Everyone's very concerned about him. This thing happened all of a sudden,'' Pesky said. ``Naturally we're concerned.''

Williams' last public appearance in Boston was when he threw out the ceremonial first ball at the 1999 All-Star game at Fenway Park.

He hit .406 in 1941 and had 521 career home runs, including a farewell homer in his last at-bat in 1960.