Heat Exhaustion

CHICAGO - Somewhere in the bowels of Wrigley Field, Roy Halladay's wife Brandy stood with the couple's two sons Monday, waiting to hear something long after the Phillies lost, 6-1, to the Cubs. "I was in the training room until well after the game," Halladay said Tuesday, "so they were upset I didn't get back to them. " Eventually, the husband, father, and best pitcher in baseball emerged from the visitors clubhouse with confidence his heat exhaustion would not beget a larger issue.

(Above) Volunteer fireman Jeff Fallan is treated by emergency personnel after collapsing from heat exhaustion while battling a three-alarm house fire in Narberth yesterday. Fallan was treated at Lankenau Hospital and was released.

A FIREFIGHTER RELAYS information at a fire in Upper Providence Township. The blaze, which began about 11 a.m. yesterday in the home on North Providence Road, damaged the entire first floor and is still under investigation, officials said. One firefighter was treated at Riddle Memorial Hospital for heat exhaustion and released.

One firefighter was injured and three homes were evacuated yesterday during a three-alarm fire at the Antique Warehouse, an antique-furniture concern in the 3800 block of Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia. Firefighter Reggie Masten was taken to Hahnemann University Hospital, where he was treated for heat exhaustion. Residents of the three homes, in the 400 block of North Saunders Street, were expected to be allowed back in last night.

Terry Hassall, the Merion Cricket Club pro, won the John Brick Memorial men's 45-and-over tennis championship by defeating Andres Peterson, 6-1, 6-1, yesterday at the Logan Tennis Club in Melrose Park. The 60-and-over championship final will be played today at noon between Ossie Jethron and Robert Simons. In yesterday's semifinals, Jethron defeated Andy Yates, 6-2, 3-6, 6-4. Simons was tied with Vic Kasser, 7-6 (7-2), 4-6, when Kasser withdrew, suffering from heat exhaustion.

With the air as thick as pea soup, the temperature was 98 degrees when Cole Hamels delivered the first pitch against the San Diego Padres on Friday night at Citizens Bank Park. Before the game, Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said that Scott Sheridan, the club's head athletic trainer, emphasized to the players that they should be properly hydrated. If time allowed, players also could head up a tunnel to the clubhouse to cool down. The heat exhaustion suffered by Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay during Monday's searing heat in Chicago served as a reminder to his teammates of the dangers of this heat wave.

It sounds easy enough: when you get thirsty, drink. But when the temperature is high, this simple equation could end up selling your body short. Athletes, the elderly and children are especially susceptible to heat dehydration, even when they have drunk enough fluids to quench their feeling of thirst. Dehydration occurs, says Dr. Arthur Bartolozzi, sports medicine specialist at Pennsylvania Hospital, when the body's temperature regulator ceases to function properly. "The purpose of sweating is to keep the body at an even temperature, by using the cooling effect of evaporation," notes Bartolozzi.

It took Roy Halladay 91 pitches to throw five innings Sunday. His face was not pale, as it was six days earlier in Chicago. He was sweating, but an illness no longer tormented his stomach, draining him of the fluids necessary to sustain the violent act of throwing a baseball over and over again in stifling heat. The first five innings of a 5-3 Phillies victory over San Diego were not Halladay's best. He could have gutted one more frame, handed the ball to the bullpen, and no one would have minded.

IT PROBABLY wouldn't have seemed like a big deal, except . . . Even the best pitchers have off days, except . . . There was Roy Halladay in the top of the fifth inning. He'd already allowed three runs on eight hits and the Padres had runners on second and third with two outs. He'd already thrown 90 pitches and the count was 3-2 to San Diego catcher Kyle Phillips. And this was the defending National League Cy Young Award winner's first start since a week ago in Wrigley Field, when he allowed seven hits and three runs in just four innings before being forced to leave the game with what was announced as heat exhaustion.

With the air as thick as pea soup, the temperature was 98 degrees when Cole Hamels delivered the first pitch against the San Diego Padres on Friday night at Citizens Bank Park. Before the game, Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said that Scott Sheridan, the club's head athletic trainer, emphasized to the players that they should be properly hydrated. If time allowed, players also could head up a tunnel to the clubhouse to cool down. The heat exhaustion suffered by Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay during Monday's searing heat in Chicago served as a reminder to his teammates of the dangers of this heat wave.

CHICAGO - Somewhere in the bowels of Wrigley Field, Roy Halladay's wife Brandy stood with the couple's two sons Monday, waiting to hear something long after the Phillies lost, 6-1, to the Cubs. "I was in the training room until well after the game," Halladay said Tuesday, "so they were upset I didn't get back to them. " Eventually, the husband, father, and best pitcher in baseball emerged from the visitors clubhouse with confidence his heat exhaustion would not beget a larger issue.

BETHESDA, Md. - Has it really been 47 years? "I don't know where [the time] goes," Ken Venturi said. "But it's a great memory. " Merely one of golf's most indelible. At the 1964 U.S. Open he won his only major on the Blue Course at Congressional Country Club, which is hosting its third national championship this week. Another generation would come to know him as the CBS analyst for 35 years, a second career that ended nearly a decade ago. But it was that sweltering Saturday in June that's always defined him. That was the last time they played 36 holes on the last day. Venturi, suffering from heat exhaustion, was advised by doctors not to go back out for the final round.

For the third time, the U.S. Open will be held on the Blue Course at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md. As usual, it will be the hardest test the top players on the planet will face this year. Even if they'll be playing it as a par 71 instead of the 70 that it was the last two times. The members, of course, play it as a 72, but if the U.S. Golf Association didn't change at least one par-5 into a 4 it wouldn't be able to identify the true champion. Or something like that. Anyway, in 1964 Ken Venturi finally won the major there that had eluded him for so long.

Officials are not yet saying if arson was the cause of a second major Camden fire in as many days that tore through an old commercial building Saturday morning. Firefighters were still dousing "hot spots" before noon. A Camden County official said the city fire department was dispatched at 2:26 a.m. to fight a blaze on the 400 block of Winslow Street at the Howland Croft building, which took up most of the street. The fire was brought under control at 6 a.m., officials said. However, the fire grew to eight alarms at the old garment factory, which officials said had been used only for storage for a number of years.

Missing yet another PGA Tour cut was the least of Michelle Wie's worries. The 16-year-old phenom was treated for heat exhaustion at a local hospital after withdrawing from the John Deere Classic in Silvis, Ill., with nine holes left yesterday. She struggled to keep herself from getting sick on a hot afternoon, and left the course in an ambulance. "She suffered a number of different symptoms, including stomach pains, nausea, dizziness and breathing problems, which worsened as the round continued," agent Ross Berlin said in a statement.

A three-alarm fire burned the roof off an Upper Moreland Township apartment building yesterday, displacing residents and slightly injuring one of roughly 50 firefighters who battled the blaze. Chief Lee Perlmutter of the Willow Grove Volunteer Fire Company said the fire broke out shortly after 4 p.m. in the 3600 block of Welsh Road. By the time firefighters arrived, the blaze had spread to the roof. Township Fire Marshal Joseph O'Neill said the cause of the blaze remained under investigation.

Nine runners collapsed from heat exhaustion yesterday during the borough's annual 10K run, and one of them remained hospitalized last night at Pottstown Memorial Medical Center. "The story I'm told is they started dropping off all the way through the town," said Maryann Stout, a nursing supervisor at Pottstown Memorial, which sponsors the race. Ricky Lear, 38, of Gilbertsville, was in stable condition in the intensive-care unit after being rushed to the hospital at 11:17 a.m., Stout said.