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Friends contend Williams wanted to be cremated
By Scott Bernard Nelson, Globe Staff, 7/12/2002
San Diego resident Bob Breitbart, a former high school classmate who said he continued to talk on the phone with Williams at least three times a week until the former ballplayer entered the hospital for the last time, said his friend of 68 years never wavered about his decision to have his ashes scattered near his former Florida home in Islamorada. He also said the idea of spending eternity head-down in a stainless steel cylinder in Scottsdale, Ariz., was one that would never have been acceptable to Williams, no matter what his son, John Henry Williams, claims in a case that is likely to be fought in a Florida courtroom as early as next week. Williams's body was reportedly shipped to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale within hours of his death last Friday. In the days since, Williams's eldest daughter, Barbara Joyce Williams Ferrell, has waged a public campaign to force her brother to honor their father's desire for cremation and many of Williams's longtime friends have come forward to support her position. Arthur Hamon, former director of the Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame in Hernando, Fla., and former teammates Johnny Pesky and Dom DiMaggio all said they heard Williams say he wanted to be cremated. Yesterday, Breitbart said it is his understanding that George H. W. Bush and several others have quietly put in calls on the slugger's behalf, too, although they have not made any public statements. ''I only hope John Henry comes to his senses on this,'' Breitbart said. ''I think there's been enough pressure by Bush and some of Ted's friends in the Marine Corps that [John Henry] might have to think about it again.'' Breitbart said he didn't have direct knowledge about the call from the former president but said he heard from people close to the family that he and other friends had called John Henry this week but did not want to make any public statements that would add to the media frenzy. Calls to a spokesman at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas, were not returned yesterday. Bush has made no public comments on the matter. In an open letter released Wednesday, Ferrell requested that Bush, former Senator John Glenn, and other prominent friends of her father with ''knowledge of daddy's wishes ... stand up and be heard.'' Attempts to reach Glenn were also unsuccessful yesterday. Ultimately, the question of whether Williams's body remains in Arizona or is shipped back to Florida for cremation may depend on what the ballplayer specified in his most recent will. A Concord lawyer, Robert McWalter, who handled Williams's estate planning until 1995, could not be reached for comment yesterday, but in yesterday's edition of the Boston Herald he is quoted as saying that the last will he knows of, from 1997, specified that Williams wanted to be cremated. Alcor will not accept bodies of people who have a will that calls for burial or cremation. That raises the question of whether Williams recently revised his will. The Citrus County probate clerk's office in Inverness, Fla., said no will for Williams had been filed as of last night. Even after that happens, Ferrell has said she will fight what she expects to be her brother's version in court. A former personal assistant told the Globe this week that Williams frequently signed legal documents without understanding their content or even being able to read them during his waning years, trusting John Henry to protect his interests. Williams's fate, then, could come down to a judge deciding which version of the baseball great's dying wishes were really his dying wishes. Breitbart, though, has no doubts. ''I never got the sense that he had changed his mind [about cremation], and he would have told me,'' Breitbart said. ''Ted loved his son, just as he loved both of his daughters, so he might have signed something that John Henry put in front of him. But there's no question in my mind what he wanted.'' Breitbart said, though, that contrary to some speculation, he did not believe that John Henry had frozen his father's body in a callous attempt to preserve future DNA to sell. Instead, he said John Henry told him that he wanted to also be frozen so that father and son could be reunited ''100 years from now'' when improved medical technology might make such a reunion possible. Scott Nelson can be reached at nelson@globe.com
This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 7/12/2002.
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s pressure continued to mount yesterday on Red Sox legend Ted Williams's son to honor his father's apparent desire to be cremated, another of the Hall of Famer's close friends came forward to say the slugger ''would have hated'' the circus-like atmosphere that has erupted around the son's decision to have his father's body frozen in liquid nitrogen in the hopes of bringing him back from the dead.