The Tale of Ted Williams' Cryogenically Frozen Head

Sordid Tale Taints Ted ‘Splendid Splinter’ Williams

I know we’re living in some crazy times baseball fans, but I’d like to know, what in the world would possess a cryogenics employee to treat beloved former major league legend Ted Williams’ head like a juicy hanging curveball?

Larry Johnson, the former chief operating officer at Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a cryonics laboratory located in Arizona, recently told the Boston Herald that one of Alcor’s employees used the head of Ted Williams, the last major league ball player to bat over .400 for an entire season, as a batting practice prop, pounding the legend’s frozen skull like nobody’s business.

Johnson who released a 405-page book on Wednesday, came out with the admission years after he left the facility, saying that he did not go to authorities because he feared for his safety for years following the traumatic even.

Johnson alleges that the Alcor employee whacked at Williams’ head with a monkey wrench while trying to knock if off of a BumbleBee tuna can.

“I was too scared for my life to say anything to anyone publicly until I was out of there,” Johnson said.

Alcor has denied Johnson’s allegations on its Web site and actually tried to legally have Johnson’s publication barred from from going to print. However, Alcor was denied in its attempts, losing a court battle that ended on Wednesday.

Johnson’s book, titled “Frozen: My Journey Into the World of Cryonics, Deception and Death” has raised quite a stir.

Alcor attorney Vincent Bauer declined comment on Wednesday, but the facility promotes itself as “the world leader in cryonic . . . speculative life support technology that seeks to preserve human life.”

Williams’ head was frozen shortly after his 2002 death after a lenghty family battle in which his survivors wree at odds with each other over what they would do with Williams’ remains.

Johnson, who worked at Alcor from January to August 2003, also went on record to say that the incident took place that July nearly six months after Williams’ body was brought to the laboratory.

Johnson, a former paramedic, said he kept quiet about the alleged mistreatmment of the legendary slugger’s head. “It was enough to shock a veteran paramedic,” Johnson said. “I just kind of gasped.”

Johnson said he felt like his story would be too unbelievable to back up, particularly without any proof, which is why he began making secret recordings of conversations with other Alcor employees.

“I was scared to death,” Johnson said. “I knew that this was so outlandish, so unbelievable, nobody was going to believe me. Half of my motivation for taping was to cover my own butt,” he added.

Johnson, said he never got any book advance or monetary deal for the book and that he never contacted Williams’ family members because of fear that he would lose his job at the facility.

“This whole thing is about having the general public know what’s going on, having the lawmakers know what’s going on,” Johnson said.