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By Abbott Koloff, Daily Record

Ted Williams' body apparently is encased in a cylinder of liquid nitrogen so that someday he can be revived, have his body rejuvenated by doctors and play baseball again - or at least, if his son has a say, sign some more autographs.

The story of Williams being taken to a cryogenic freezing warehouse has brought some publicity this week to a foundation that runs a site where at least part of 50 deceased people - mostly just their heads - have been frozen for revival after scientists figure out how to regenerate cells and bring people back from what we now know as death.

It has led to so many inquiries to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, in Scottsdale, Ariz., where Williams' body reportedly has been sent, that the foundation's marketing people, ignored not so long ago, have had trouble returning calls. It has led to a national discussion about post-death freezing, which Alcor has been trying to promote for decades - although not the kind of discussion that the foundation's marketing people might have wanted.

Ted Williams reportedly wanted to be cremated and his ashes to be scattered over the Everglades. A story published on Thursday reported that he wasn't exactly enthusiastic when his son, John Henry Williams, proposed the idea of freezing. John Henry told his dad that he didn't have to have his whole body frozen - that they could cut off his head and just freeze that.

"What are you, nuts?" Williams reportedly said.

That doesn't have the makings of an advertising slogan.

Alcor and other some other companies have been trying to promote freezing as a way to live after death - and, in a way, to travel to the future.

Full-body freezing costs $120,000 but you get a deal - $50,000 - if all you want to freeze is your head.

The rest of the body, presumably, could be grown at some future date.
Michael Zey, an author and a futurist from Morris Township, said he once got a letter from a company offering to freeze his body after his death. The letter was an attempt to appeal to his vanity, saying he was just the kind of person who should be preserved because he would have something to offer civilization in the distant future. Zey was intrigued but never responded.

"I didn't want to get into a conversation where some marketer would say to me, 'What would it take to make you want to be frozen?'" Zey said.

Someday, you might get a call from a telemarketer asking if you want to live forever - or offering a reservation in about 100 years to a baseball fantasy camp featuring Ted Williams. Zey said freezing bodies might become a big business if anyone actually is unfrozen - which may be 100 years off, if it ever happens. But even if technical problems are overcome, no one knows whether the person revived will be the same as the one who existed before death.

It remains to be seen, for example, whether scientists can flip a switch to turn on the soul.

The Alcor Web site, which refers to its clients as "patients," addresses some of these questions. It says that whether freezing preserves the encoding in the brain that makes up a person's identity is unknown. It speculates that its patients, once awakened, might suffer "varying degrees of amnesia."

Still, Alcor claims on its Web site to have close to 600 people who signed up for the chance to live after death, and perhaps forever. It claims, prematurely, that freezing is not a way to store bodies, but could be a new way to save lives.

Flora Schnall of New York runs a Web site devoted to a friend, a writer and futurist known as FM-2030, who died two years ago of pancreatic cancer but expected to live again. He's now one of Williams' neighbors, his body suspended in liquid nitrogen at Alcor. Schnall was asked this week about whether FM-2030 believed that he would wake up the same person, with the same soul.

"I'm not so sure he believed in a soul," Schnall said. "It seems that's a religious concept."

FM-2030, who changed his name from FM Esfandiary because he believed the year 2030 would be some sort of turning point in human history, was known as an optimist about the future. Schnall said he believed in a coming utopia where there would be peace on Earth, the planets would be colonized and most diseases would be wiped out. He also apparently expected to be pretty much the same person after he gets thawed out.

"He asked me and other friends to be suspended so that he wouldn't come back and find no one he knew," said Schnall. She said she's not a member of Alcor but is considering signing up.

Otherwise, FM-2030 might be lonely, out of place in the 22nd century.

He certainly wouldn't have much in common with Ted Williams.

Esfandiary was a fencer for the Iranian Olympic team in 1948, according to an obituary written two years ago, but Schnall said he believed competition to be a waste of time. That could lead to a lively debate in about 100 years.

"I understand Ted Williams was very competitive," Schnall said.

It's not likely that Williams will be in a good mood when he wakes up. His friends have said in published reports that he would consider the idea of being frozen as something alien. He was known for philosophizing about hitting baseballs and fishing, not for wondering what will happen to civilization in a few hundred years.

He spent his final years signing baseball memorabilia put in front of him by his son, according to published reports. There have been reports that John Henry had Williams frozen because he wants to sell his father's DNA. That seems unlikely, since Williams' body is going to be unavailable, encased in a cylinder of liquid nitrogen.

Maybe John Henry is thinking about selling his father's future rights as a baseball player. But, as Zey pointed out, Williams might be a little rusty after not swinging a bat for 150 years.

So it's not clear what John Henry hopes to gain. Maybe he plans to have himself frozen and wants to make sure that his father will be there to sign autographs so he'll have a source of income.

[ This message was edited on Thu Jul 18 by the author ]