Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

He Was a Man

Mock photo of Ted Williams's preserved head
Mock photo of Ted Williams's preserved head

A former executive of the Scottsdale cryonics company where baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams’s body is frozen launched a pay-per-view website with gruesome decapitation photos to raise money for his legal defense.

“To be honest with you,” Johnson said Wednesday, “I fear for my life. The people at Alcor are whacked. They’re unstable and dangerous, all of them. They’re a cult. Fanatics.”

The foregoing was published August 14, 2003, in USA Today. The speaker is former Alcor interim chief operating officer Larry Johnson.

Not a lot has changed in six years. Same guy, same charges, same fear for his life, same ghoulish head, same pictures on the internet. What’s new is the packaging, courtesy of Vanguard Press.

Sponsored
Sponsored

Typically, a news story rises from the information slipstream, joins human flotsam for a day, two days, maybe a week, and then slips back into the info bog. The first round of news reports are often inaccurate, so are later news reports, but usually not to the same degree. Which is a long intro to Ted Williams’s head. Second-wave coverage repeated the original story but took on a jolly tone:

FanHouse.com: Ted Williams’s Frozen Head Used for Batting Practice.

Boston Herald: Author Frozen by Fear Over Alleged Ted Williams Head Hit.

Chicago Sun-Times: Fox Sports Employs Ted Williams’s Frozen Head to Predict the Playoffs.

Ted Williams is a grisly, macabre joke. He was a man once.

Theodore Samuel Williams was born in San Diego. Mom worked for the Salvation Army, dad was an alcoholic, younger brother earned his way into jail after stealing household furniture. Problem was, it was his family’s household furniture, taken from his parents’ house. Mom dropped the dime. Mr. and Mrs. Williams were divorced in 1939.

There were 68,000 people living in San Diego at the time of Ted’s birth. He attended Herbert Hoover High School, helped his team win a state championship, and signed with the local minor-league franchise (San Diego Padres). It was 1936, and Williams was 17 years old.

His first major-league game occurred on April 20, 1939. He played for the Boston Red Sox. His last game was on September 28, 1960. He played for the same team. Williams batted .406 in 1941, the last guy to break .400. He won too many awards to cite here, had a 19-year major-league career followed by a 4-year managing career.

As the country entered the Second World War, Williams had a 3-A deferment (marriage and sole support of his mother). He was reclassified 1-A, appealed, lost on appeal, then saw the verdict overturned by the White House. In the process, he lost the good will of many, including his largest sponsor, Quaker Oats.

He enlisted into the Navy on May 22, 1942. Williams spent the war in school. He received preflight training, primary training, advanced flight training, and was commissioned in the Marine Corps in May, 1944. Then, posted to Pensacola as a flight instructor, wound up in Hawaii on his way to the war when it ended. Released from active duty January of 1946.

He sounds like a regular human being.

Wasn’t eager to go to war, used what influence he had to avoid being drafted, but when things didn’t go his way, took his place without complaint. He could have spent the war playing baseball for the Navy but didn’t.

But, he got his war. Ted was recalled to active duty in 1952, at the age of 34, and flew 39 combat missions in Korea. He never forgot where he came from, was loyal to his friends, kept some early San Diego friendships going all his life.

Leigh Montville, author of Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero, wrote, “Williams was also one of the greater champions in profanity. The Lord above, the crudest Anglo-Saxon words for male and (especially) female anatomical parts, sodomic acts — all were included in long but connected swearing diatribes, more often than not peppered by the adjective ‘syphilitic.’”

He was married three times. Wife 1, Doris Soule, was the daughter of his hunting guide. Wife two, Lee Howard, was a model. Wife 3, was Miss Vermont, Dolores Wettach. His big love appears to be Louise Kaufman. They lived together for 20 years. She died in 1993.

Ted Williams had two daughters, both estranged, and one son, John Henry, who seems to be disliked by all who knew him. He was a great fisherman, a good friend, and anonymous benefactor. He came from one dysfunctional family and fathered another. When he was old and weak, he allowed his predatory son to take over his life. He was a great, great baseball player, and for 95 percent of his time on earth lived a normal, dysfunctional life. He doesn’t deserve this.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Summit Fellowship wants to be a home of belonging

Unitarian Universalism allows you to be exactly who you are in the moment
Mock photo of Ted Williams's preserved head
Mock photo of Ted Williams's preserved head

A former executive of the Scottsdale cryonics company where baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams’s body is frozen launched a pay-per-view website with gruesome decapitation photos to raise money for his legal defense.

“To be honest with you,” Johnson said Wednesday, “I fear for my life. The people at Alcor are whacked. They’re unstable and dangerous, all of them. They’re a cult. Fanatics.”

The foregoing was published August 14, 2003, in USA Today. The speaker is former Alcor interim chief operating officer Larry Johnson.

Not a lot has changed in six years. Same guy, same charges, same fear for his life, same ghoulish head, same pictures on the internet. What’s new is the packaging, courtesy of Vanguard Press.

Sponsored
Sponsored

Typically, a news story rises from the information slipstream, joins human flotsam for a day, two days, maybe a week, and then slips back into the info bog. The first round of news reports are often inaccurate, so are later news reports, but usually not to the same degree. Which is a long intro to Ted Williams’s head. Second-wave coverage repeated the original story but took on a jolly tone:

FanHouse.com: Ted Williams’s Frozen Head Used for Batting Practice.

Boston Herald: Author Frozen by Fear Over Alleged Ted Williams Head Hit.

Chicago Sun-Times: Fox Sports Employs Ted Williams’s Frozen Head to Predict the Playoffs.

Ted Williams is a grisly, macabre joke. He was a man once.

Theodore Samuel Williams was born in San Diego. Mom worked for the Salvation Army, dad was an alcoholic, younger brother earned his way into jail after stealing household furniture. Problem was, it was his family’s household furniture, taken from his parents’ house. Mom dropped the dime. Mr. and Mrs. Williams were divorced in 1939.

There were 68,000 people living in San Diego at the time of Ted’s birth. He attended Herbert Hoover High School, helped his team win a state championship, and signed with the local minor-league franchise (San Diego Padres). It was 1936, and Williams was 17 years old.

His first major-league game occurred on April 20, 1939. He played for the Boston Red Sox. His last game was on September 28, 1960. He played for the same team. Williams batted .406 in 1941, the last guy to break .400. He won too many awards to cite here, had a 19-year major-league career followed by a 4-year managing career.

As the country entered the Second World War, Williams had a 3-A deferment (marriage and sole support of his mother). He was reclassified 1-A, appealed, lost on appeal, then saw the verdict overturned by the White House. In the process, he lost the good will of many, including his largest sponsor, Quaker Oats.

He enlisted into the Navy on May 22, 1942. Williams spent the war in school. He received preflight training, primary training, advanced flight training, and was commissioned in the Marine Corps in May, 1944. Then, posted to Pensacola as a flight instructor, wound up in Hawaii on his way to the war when it ended. Released from active duty January of 1946.

He sounds like a regular human being.

Wasn’t eager to go to war, used what influence he had to avoid being drafted, but when things didn’t go his way, took his place without complaint. He could have spent the war playing baseball for the Navy but didn’t.

But, he got his war. Ted was recalled to active duty in 1952, at the age of 34, and flew 39 combat missions in Korea. He never forgot where he came from, was loyal to his friends, kept some early San Diego friendships going all his life.

Leigh Montville, author of Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero, wrote, “Williams was also one of the greater champions in profanity. The Lord above, the crudest Anglo-Saxon words for male and (especially) female anatomical parts, sodomic acts — all were included in long but connected swearing diatribes, more often than not peppered by the adjective ‘syphilitic.’”

He was married three times. Wife 1, Doris Soule, was the daughter of his hunting guide. Wife two, Lee Howard, was a model. Wife 3, was Miss Vermont, Dolores Wettach. His big love appears to be Louise Kaufman. They lived together for 20 years. She died in 1993.

Ted Williams had two daughters, both estranged, and one son, John Henry, who seems to be disliked by all who knew him. He was a great fisherman, a good friend, and anonymous benefactor. He came from one dysfunctional family and fathered another. When he was old and weak, he allowed his predatory son to take over his life. He was a great, great baseball player, and for 95 percent of his time on earth lived a normal, dysfunctional life. He doesn’t deserve this.

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Angry Pete’s goes from pop-up to drive-thru

Detroit Pizza sidles into the husk of a shuttered Taco Bell
Next Article

Flowering pear trees in Kensington not that nice

Empty dirt plots in front of Ken Cinema
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.