By Jeff Nelson
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, April 23, 2008 11:27 AM

St. Albans junior varsity baseball coach Stephen Wheeler is in fair condition this morning after he was struck in the head by a thrown ball in last night's game against Georgetown Prep.

Wheeler had emergency surgery for a fractured skull and hematoma, according to St. Albans varsity coach Jason Larocque, who spoke last night with Wheeler's doctor at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda.

"I think it could have been a lot worse, but I don't think we're out of the forest yet," said Larocque, who said he was told the surgery went well, but there's a 48- to 72-hour window in which there's a 20-percent chance the bleeding can reoccur.

Voicemails left with St. Albans athletic director David Baad and junior varsity assistant coach Benjamin Myers were not immediately returned.

Larocque had left the JV game shortly before the injury occurred, but said he received a message as he got home and immediately drove back to the stadium, where Wheeler was still lying on the field.

Larocque said he was told Wheeler, 29, was coaching third base when a ball intended for Georgetown Prep's third baseman was overthrown. The left fielder ran to retrieve the ball, picked it up and immediately spun and threw, but hit Wheeler in the head from close range.

With St. Albans leading 9-0 in the sixth inning, the game was stopped for roughly 30 minutes while an ambulance came to get him. After Wheeler was taken away, Larocque said Myers decided the players were too upset to continue playing.

Larocque, who went to the hospital, said Wheeler was incoherent and slurring his words as he went into surgery, which relieved the pressure on his brain.

Wheeler's condition this morning is a positive sign. A hospital spokesperson said that out of the four conditions issued, "fair" is the second best, behind "good" and ahead of "serious" and "critical".

Larocque also said the doctor, a former baseball player at Princeton, gave them mostly positive feedback.

"He said [this type of injury] wasn't common," Larocque said, "but he had seen it before and done this surgery frequently in the past."

Wheeler has been on staff at St. Albans for six years and is a biology teacher. Larocque said three players and their families came to the hospital last night, as did the Georgetown Prep player who threw the ball, and the player's father.

"We told him we appreciated his concern and we'd let Stephen know he came by when he was out of recovery," Larocque said. "Anytime you're playing a ball and bat sport, these things can happen, and it wasn't on purpose. We obviously tried to make him feel better, because he was distraught."

Major League Baseball this season began requiring base coaches to wear helmets. The move was in response to Colorado Rockies minor league first base coach Mike Coolbaugh being killed last year when he was struck by a line drive while standing in the coaches' box.

The National Federation of State High School Associations already required players coaching bases to wear helmets. However, the federation -- which oversees rule-making for individual state associations -- does not require coaches to wear helmets when on the field.

"It sounds like something certainly we ought to look into," said Ned Sparks, executive director of the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association. "It hasn't come up. But we'll keep close tabs on it."

Larocque confirmed again that Wheeler wasn't wearing a helmet.

Larocque said he's never seen a coach choose to wear a helmet on the field. Asked if high schools should follow MLB's lead with a rule, he said:

"I mean, obviously the exit speed [of the ball off the bat] at the high school level is less [than the majors], but now, knowing what I know, it's something I think we should consider," he said.

Asked if he could have anticipated this happening on a thrown ball, he said, "It's very rare when it's a thrown ball that you get hit in the head, especially as a coach."

Staff writer Josh Barr contributed to this story.