Ted Williams, baseball Hall-of-Famer, Boston Red Sox legend, and one of the greatest hitters ever to touch a bat, must be paying off some kind of major karmic debt. Called the “Splendid Splinter” because of his tall but slight build, he was known for being, well, not particularly friendly. He didn’t acknowledge the fans when they cheered for him, he was hostile to the press, and he was a little too fond of himself for most people’s liking. Because of his status as a professional athlete, he was able to find not one—but three—women to marry him, offering engagement rings over the years to the daughter of his hunting guide, a socialite model, and a former pageant queen/model–all between 1944 and 1968. He finally settled down with Louise Kaufman for 20 years until she died in 1993. Immediately after, the vultures that were Ted’s sons got a lawyer involved to get their half-interest in the condo that they claimed he gave her.
When Ted died in 2002, his will stipulated that he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes sprinkled at sea, ‘where the water is deep’. He had always been an avid fisherman, so this made sense. What did not make sense was the actions of his son, John-Henry, who had, over the years, taken over more and more of his father’s affairs—whether his father knew or not. Citing a legal agreement between his father, his sister Claudia, and himself, John-Henry insisted that Ted’s body be put in cryostasis, so that they might be together again someday.
One Should Not Have to Say: "Please Don't Decapitate Me After I Die".
This ‘legally binding agreement’ was written on an ink-stained napkin and signed by all three parties. The only thing that didn’t quite add up was that Ted always signed legal documents with his full name: Theodore. This was on a napkin, the scrawled “Ted Williams” looking more like an autograph a kid might get after wiping the mustard off of his face with the other side. And then, of course, there was the issue of the will, which specifically said nothing about cryostasis. Ted wanted fire, not ice.
But John-Henry was adamant, and somehow got his wish. Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona, was the chosen cryostatic preservation site. In a book written by whistle-blower Larry Johnson, it is revealed that Alcor did not offer the promised dignity that anyplace suspending bodies in liquid nitrogen should. Johnson, who was the Chief Operating Officer of Alcor until 2003, stole internal records and took photographs he describes as “gruesome” before going into hiding to write his book.
Evidently, a visit to Alcor wasn’t like the charming Cryo Prison in the 1993 movie “Demolition Man”, where Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stallone were suspended and frozen in transparent pods organized in a sterile environment. In 2003, Buzz Hamon, a longtime friend of Williams’, snuck into Alcor with the help of a mortician friend, where he saw the 50-or-so steel tanks in which the bodies were frozen. Strewn around the room were cardboard boxes and trash.
And one more thing: Ted Williams’ head, despite the instructions of John-Henry, was removed from his body. In an effort to keep it from sticking to the base on which it was held, it was balanced on a tuna can leftover from feeding a cat that lived nearby. When it got stuck, a macabre batting practice took place, in which one Alcor employee allegedly swung a monkey wrench at the can, hoping to break it free. When he missed, the head—frozen at -321 degrees Fahrenheit—sent off several not-so-splendid splinters. Things frozen at that temperature do have a tendency to crack. According to Johnson, it took a second swing to get the Bumblebee tuna can free.
John-Henry died of Leukemia in 2004 after a long court battle with half-sister Bobby-Jo, who had wanted to follow her father’s will all along.
Now this book is coming out five years later, and one has to wonder where the slugger’s body is, and in how many pieces. Has Bobby-Jo already liberated her father’s body from its cryo-prison and cremated him as his will indicated, or does he hang, suspended still, separated from his now-damaged head?
Alcor, naturally, plans to take action against their former COO and his book.
The man whose only wish was to be called “The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived” may or may not still be frozen in a place that may or may not be totally unsuitable, even for cryogenics. What began as a crackpot scheme between John-Henry and his sister Claudia has turned into a Stephen King novel.
Even the notoriously mean-as-a-snake Ted Williams deserves better. Hopefully, Bobby Jo has already seen that her father got a decent burial at sea, as requested.
I, for one, will never eat a frozen dinner again.