Ted Williams and Dad

Dad and I were watching Perry Mason when somehow the the subject of Ted Williams, the legendary Red Sox hitter, came up. Dad said he’d met him once, in 1952, at a Marine base in California. Williams was returning from duty as an aviator in the Korean War. He’d also served a stint in WW II at the beginning of his career.

After surviving combat, Dad was winding down his Marine hitch by helping office move their families and possessions from Japan, the Philippines, even Hawaii, back to the mainland. It’s where he learned how to expertly pack a moving van, a skill he taught me well in my 20s when he helped me move into at least a dozen apartments in Portland. Christ, we must have hauled that piece-of-shit hide-a-bed up a hundred flights of stairs because it never fit in an elevator.

In turn, I became an expert mover, and never underestimate that skill. Most people who move themselves have no idea how to do it right.

So there Ted Williams was one day, heading east and back to the Red Sox, and the base commander introduced Dad to him. They shook hands. Dad remembered him as tall and lean and a very nice man.

I asked if he got an autograph.

Dad roared. “I don’t get someone’s autograph!”

I laughed and said I wished he had. I’d love to own Ted Williams signature, especially on a baseball.

We then started talking about the bizarre story of what happened to Ted Williams after his death in 2002. Two of his children wanted him cryogenically frozen for resuscitation later. The other sibling didn’t want it. That sibling ran out of money contesting the decision. As a result, Ted Williams was decapitated. Apparently, when someone is cryogenically frozen, the head is severed from the body and stored separately.

So, the Splendid Splinter is headless and frozen somewhere in Arizona.

I asked Dad if he wanted to be cryogenically frozen in hope of resuscitation when there are procedures to increase human longevity.

He laughed. “Are you kidding me?”