The Frozen GOAT

April 01, 2023

Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The newsletter that always shows up; we’re basically the Cal Ripken Jr. of the email world.

Let’s dive in.

Today’s story is about a legend who was exploited by his own family.

If you don’t know who Ted Williams is, this newsletter probably isn’t for you.

He’s the last man to hit .400 in a season, and arguably the greatest hitter of all-time.

Williams was also an American war hero that transcended the game.

But what you may not know is that Ted’s body is currently frozen in a cryonics lab somewhere in Scottsdale, AZ.

Williams’ family convinced him to sign off on this before he died in hopes that he'll somehow be able to come back to life hundreds of years from now.

Was Ted Williams really that bonkers?

Some of the circumstances around the whole thing are pretty sketchy.

For one, Ted’s own daughter, Bobby-Jo, sued her brother and sister over this whole thing; saying that her dad had wished to be cremated.

When his will was made public, that fact was confirmed.

She accused John Henry and Claudia Williams of tricking Ted into doing cryonics for the sole purpose of selling his DNA.

To understand how this would even be possible, we have to take a closer look at the relationship between Ted and John Henry.

Ted had a lot of health problems in his final years of life.

In 1991, John Henry started taking care of his dad full-time.

This included managing his personal and business affairs, and eventually John got power of attorney.

Over the years, many people accused John Henry of trying to exploit his dad financially.

From projects like hitter.net to keeping him quarantined at home signing autographs all day, it appeared John Henry wanted to get every penny out of Ted.

So why did John want to freeze his father?

Allegedly, John said to his sister “wouldn’t it be neat to sell dad’s DNA?

There’s lots of people who would pay big bucks to have little Ted Williams’ running around”

It seems crazy, but there was actually reports of missing DNA from the Alcor lab.

Even worse, an ex-employee at Alcor released a tell-all book that described the horrific treatment of Ted Williams’ body.

Including the fact that they accidentally decapitated him and froze his head to a tuna can.

Beyond that, the lab was given the body without ever having any paperwork signed by Ted himself.

This was all they had.

A lot of folks think this is a flat out fake. John Henry used to brag about his ability to forge his dad's signature.

Unfortunately, Bobby-Jo didn’t have enough money to keep fighting.

The lawsuit cost her $80K in legal fees and ultimately was settled out of court.

John-Henry died of Leukemia in 2004.

Ted Williams remains frozen.

Every franchise has it’s own personality.

Shaped by the fans, the iconic moments, and the players who made you fall in love with your team.

Homage just dropped a collection inspired by MLB teams and their most epic teams/moments.

Don’t sleep on the BOGO 40% off deal that’s going on right now.

STRANGE NAMES

If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.

Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.

If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.

Today's winner is:

Booty was the minor league defensive player of the year in ‘97, but other than that he had a pretty forgettable career.

He made $1.6 million with the Marlins and then went on to play pro football.

Probably the most random fact about this guy is that he won MLB Network’s reality show “The Next Knuckler.”

That got him an invite to spring training with the D-Backs in 2013, but nothing came of it.

THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

If you like this story, check out some of our past favorites:

That's it for today. Tomorrow we're back at it like a bad habit. See ya!

If you like this email, don't keep it to yourself.

Or copy and paste this link to others: Deadlegends.co