- BOSTON (Reuters) - Family
and admirers of baseball great Ted Williams expressed revulsion on Monday
at reports that the slugger's dead body would be frozen in the hopes of
one day selling his DNA or cloning him.
-
- Just days after the former Boston Red Sox player died
at the age of 83, macabre reports indicated the body of Williams -- one
of the greatest hitters of all time and the last Major League Baseball
player to hit better than .400 for a season -- had been flown to a cryogenic
warehouse in Arizona.
-
- "I pray that everybody is up in arms," the
slugger's eldest daughter, Barbara Joyce "Bobby-Jo" Williams
Ferrell, told Boston TV station WHDH. "This is just an immoral, wrong
thing. It's a horrible thing that has to be righted."
-
- Williams Ferrell said her half-brother, John Henry Williams,
had shipped her father's corpse to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation
in Scottsdale, Arizona, hoping the family could cash in on his genes.
-
- "He said we can sell Dad's DNA, and people will
buy that because they'd love to have little Ted Williamses," she said
in the television interview from her home in Florida, likening the controversy
over her father's body to something from a Stephen King novel.
-
- Williams Ferrell added she planned to go to court to
prevent her father's body from being frozen, saying he wanted to be cremated
-- a claim backed up by at least one of his former teammates.
-
- "His desire was to be cremated and be buried next
to his dog Slugger," former Red Sox player Bobby Doerr said from his
vacation home near Gold Beach, Oregon.
-
- Doerr, 84, told Reuters he had spoken with Williams about
a week before his death and that the slugger had mentioned nothing at that
time or in any prior conversation about wanting his corpse to be put on
ice.
-
- "Maybe John Henry knows more than others, but I
wouldn't just think that Ted would go for that. Ted didn't even want to
have a movie made of his life," Doerr said.
-
- The controversy dominated media coverage in Boston, where
Williams is considered one of the city's all-time great sports legends.
-
- Many Red Sox fans said they were disgusted by the very
thought of freezing the former outfielder.
-
- "This apparently has happened so soon after Ted's
death, it seems to have been pre-planned by the son which makes it seem
more sinister, even ghoulish," said Red Sox fan Vern Trotter.
-
- John Henry Williams could not be reached for comment,
and Ted Williams' lawyer declined to speak about the fate of his body.
-
- Officials at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation also
declined to comment on Williams.
-
- Williams was famous for his sharp vision and fast wrists,
which he combined with a fluid, powerful swing and total fearlessness at
the plate. Also known as the Splendid Splinter, he was elected to the Baseball
Hall of Fame in 1966.
-
-
- Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited
without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable
for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance
thereon.
|
