Tests Negative but Laird May Stay on Vacation

Gerald Laird, the Times Orange County’s two-time baseball player of the year, is recovering after being hit in the helmet by a pitch during the Connie Mack state regional championship game July 26, his mother, Vicky Laird, said Monday.

She said the family received word Monday from doctors that MRI and CAT scan tests were negative.

Laird, a second-round pick by Oakland in the June draft, is fishing in the mountains. Laird’s team, the Orange County Cardinals, beat the Orange County Renegades for the state title and will play their first game in the Connie Mack World Series Saturday in Farmington, N.M.

The Cardinals will leave Thursday for the series, but Vicky Laird said, “Gerald hasn’t decided yet if he will play. This is the first vacation he’s had in a long time.”

Randy Vanderhook, Cardinal coach since 1979, said Laird was hit three times by Renegades pitchers on July 26. The third was in the helmet and Laird had to leave the game. He was taken to Long Beach Community Hospital, where he was kept overnight for observation.

Laird was also hit by a pitch in Chicago during the Amateur American Baseball Congress national tournament, held the last week in June, Vanderhook said. The errant pitch went off his right shoulder and struck him in the mouth.