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THOSE WHO KNEW HIM Chums say Williams never said he wanted remains frozen
By Gordon Edes, Globe Staff, 7/17/2002
''I'm sitting here with a copy of Ted's will in my hands,'' said Arthur ''Buzz'' Hamon, the former director of the Ted Williams Museum in Hernando, Fla., who continued to travel with Williams until the ballplayer's health forced him to remain home the final two years of his life. ''The will makes sense to me, that he wanted to be cremated. He loved the [Florida] Keys. But this petition doesn't. He didn't ask to be [expletive] frozen. Never. Never. Never.'' Bob Breitbard attended high school with Williams in San Diego (Herbert Hoover High), remained friends with him for 68 years until his death, and spoke with him just three days before he died. Breitbard was adamant that Williams had no interest in cryonics. ''If Ted Williams said in a 1996 will that he wanted to be cremated, wouldn't you say that's what he wanted?'' Breitbard said yesterday. ''I've heard John Henry Williams say that he wanted to be that way and wanted his dad to be frozen cryonically, but not Ted Williams. Never.'' Breitbard said that when Williams was convalescing in a San Diego hospital in the months after he underwent nine hours of open-heart surgery in New York in January 2001, John Henry Williams went to Arizona to visit the Alcor Life Extension Foundation cryonics facility. ''When he came back,'' Breitbard said, ''he called me on a Sunday and wanted to meet me for breakfast. That's when he told me that's what he wanted to do. I said, `Don't you do it. Your dad wouldn't want it.''' According to the executor of Williams's will, Albert Cassidy, Williams asked to be frozen after signing the will in December 1996. ''After the date of the execution of his Last Will and Testament,'' Cassidy wrote in his petition presented in Florida probate court yesterday, ''Mr. Williams expressed the desire to be cryonically preserved.'' There was no written evidence or documentation presented with Cassidy's petition. Alcor's policy regarding those requesting to be frozen stipulates there must be written permission from the client. Calls to Alcor to determine whether Williams's admission was consistent with that policy were not returned. However, in an application for membership available on the organization's Web site, Alcor states: ''Alcor does not require that you have a will in order to become a Member. However, if you already have a will which has provisions contrary to the goals of cryonics (for example, if your will states that you do not want cryonic suspension, or if it requires cremation, burial, or other dispositions of your human remains after your legal death), these will invalidate your Cryonic Suspension Agreement. If you have a will, it is your responsibility to change it through a new codicil or a new will; otherwise your suspension arrangements will not be valid.'' DiMaggio spoke with Williams by phone July 4, the day before Williams died, just as he had called almost daily for months. ''He said two words - `Hello, Dommy' - and couldn't muster anything else,'' said DiMaggio, brother of Joe DiMaggio. ''The last 10 days, I could tell his voice was faltering. ''I was very saddened by his passing. I feel that memories will fill the void, but what's going on now makes me a great deal sadder. I thought it would be over, now that he is at rest, but he's not at rest. This turmoil, it's a terrible thing.'' DiMaggio said that in his many conversations with Williams through the years, they never discussed Williams dying. Williams never spoke to him directly about a wish to be cremated, he said, but he had heard about it from other Williams's friends. ''I wish I could make a definitive statement about [cremation], that he did or didn't want [to be cremated], but I can't.'' But DiMaggio said Williams never mentioned his willingness to participate in cryonics, where his body would be frozen in hopes that he could one day be scientifically revived. ''Never,'' DiMaggio said. ''No, no, no. The first time I ever heard about the cryonics thing was after he passed on.'' Elden Auker, a former Williams teammate, lives in Florida, where Williams was living at the time of his death, and was in regular contact. As with DiMaggio, Auker said he never spoke with Williams about his intentions regarding his death. ''We talked about a lot of things,'' Auker said. ''But never about dying.'' Could Auker imagine his friend wanting to be frozen? ''To be frozen? Oh, Jeez, no,'' he said. ''Now to be cremated, and have his ashes spread over his ol' fishing grounds in Islamorada? That sounds like Ted. But my God, to be frozen, head-down ... that's sick.'' Breitbard, director of the San Diego Hall of Champions, held a tribute to Williams on Monday. A keynote speaker was Dick Enberg, the longtime sports broadcaster. His final words to the audience, according to Breitbard: ''If John Henry is looking on or listening, let the old fisherman go back to the sea.''
This story ran on page A16 of the Boston Globe on 7/17/2002.
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ed Williams's closest friends, including former Red Sox teammate Dominic DiMaggio, who spoke with the Hall of Famer the day before he died, insisted yesterday that they never heard Williams express a desire to have his remains frozen, despite the assertions made in court yesterday by the executor of his estate.