They Gotta Have Heart--but Not One of Their Own

--Surgeon R. Morton Bolman hit ground balls and fungoes to 10 members of his special softball team. The team is unique because every member has received a new heart from the surgeon. The nation’s only softball team composed of heart transplant recipients conducted its first practice in Forest Park within sight of Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, where all the operations were performed. Numbers on the players’ red-and-white T-shirts correspond with the order of their surgery. The first heart transplant at Barnes was in January, 1985. Bolman since has performed 28 such operations. Twenty-three of the patients are still alive. “A lot of sweat and tears has gone into these folks,” said Bolman, watching the team work out. “I’m really proud of them. The message is, don’t give up.” Clay Hyland, who wears T-shirt No. 14, organized the team a couple of months ago. He said the group hopes to play one charity game a week this summer against media and celebrity teams. “I feel as healthy as I did 10 years ago,” said Hyland, 41, an advertising executive who got a new heart Oct. 14. “I have no problem with my heart, but it’s my knee. I have an old knee injury.”

--Despite tight security in force, Queen Elizabeth II, dressed in primrose yellow, mingled with thousands of schoolchildren who came to Buckingham Palace in London with armfuls of yellow daffodils to wish her a happy 60th birthday. The queen, her husband, Prince Philip, her son Prince Andrew and daughter-in-law-to-be, Sarah Ferguson, came down from the balcony of the palace to meet some of the children who had come to sing “Happy Birthday” and present her with 120,000 daffodils.

--Sex guru Ruth Westheimer, golfer Nancy Lopez, opera singer Marilyn Horne and airline flight attendant Uli Derickson were named among the 10 Outstanding Mothers of 1986 by the National Mother’s Day Committee. Also named were Olympic runner Valerie Brisco-Hooks, business executive Beatrice Coleman, actress Carmen de Lavallade, actress Janet Leigh and newswomen Judy Licht and Marjorie Margolies. Phyllis George, named to the top 10 in 1981 for helping abused women and children while she was the first lady of Kentucky, will make the official presentations today in New York. The women, who have teamed careers with child-raising, are being saluted for their role-model influence, Judith Levan, president of the committee, said.