Ted Williams' son dead of leukemia at age 35
Posted: Sunday March 7, 2004 10:12PM; Updated: Monday March 8, 2004 12:34AM
BOSTON (AP) -- The son of Hall of Famer Ted Williams died late Friday of leukemia in a hospital in Los Angeles, an attorney for Ted Williams' family said. John Henry Williams was 35.
Peter Sutton said Williams died at UCLA Medical Center with family members at his bedside.
Sutton said John Henry Williams' sister, Claudia Williams, and attorney, Eric Abel, informed him of the death by phone.
Williams, at the center of a controversy surrounding his father's remains, had been battling the disease for months. In December, he had a bone marrow transplant, using a donation from Claudia, his youngest sister.
"On behalf of all of us with the Boston Red Sox, we extend our condolences to the John Henry Williams family," Red Sox principal owner John W. Henry said. "Perhaps no person meant more to the history of the Boston Red Sox than did his father, and it was clear that his father's life and legacy were the focal point of John Henry Williams' life.
"It is particularly sad that leukemia claimed his life, for his father was a pioneer in the development of the Jimmy Fund, which has made such remarkable progress in the fight against cancer."
Williams said in October that he had been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia that month at UCLA Medical Center. He said at the time that he had already started chemotherapy.
Ted Williams' brother, Danny Williams, who had leukemia, died at the age of 39.
About 10,500 new cases of acute myelogenous leukemia are diagnosed each year in the United States, with remission occurring in 70-80 percent of those patients.
A spokeswoman at UCLA Medical Center said Sunday she had no record of John Henry Williams currently being a patient at the hospital.
After his father died July 5, 2002, John Henry Williams had his father's body taken to an Arizona cryonics lab for freezing, setting off a battle with his half-sister, who said her father had wanted to be cremated.
The matter was settled in December 2002, when Bobby Jo Ferrell, Ted Williams' oldest daughter, dropped her objections.
The note that Ted Williams signed setting in motion his being frozen included a provision that John Henry and Claudia Williams would join him: "JHW, Claudia and Dad all agree to be put into biostasis after we die," it read.
Sutton declined comment when asked if John Henry Williams was still pursuing cryonics for himself. A message left for Joe Waynick, the CEO of Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., was not immediately returned.
A phone number for Claudia Williams could not be located. A message left at a listing for Abel in Hernando, Fla., was not immediately returned.
Ted Williams finished with a .344 career average and was the last major leaguer to bat over .400, when he hit .406 in 1941.
John Henry Williams made an attempt in the past two seasons to follow in his father's footsteps, playing for some low-level minor league and independent baseball teams.
