PHILADELPHIA – The only thing missing from this Ted Williams story is a pack of flesh-eating zombies from beyond the grave.

A Sports Illustrated story this week provided way more information than any of us strictly need to know about Williams’ condition. The story, based on information from the former CEO of the cryonics company that houses Williams’ remains, reads like Gothic sci-fi, complete with ghoulish lab workers and macabre details.

It is beyond tragic that Williams’ death has been so contrary to the way he lived his life. There was nothing tabloid-sordid about the baseball and war hero, about the last man to hit .400 in the major leagues. When Williams died last summer, though, control of his legacy passed into the hands of his children.

That hasn’t gone so well.

By now, the story has been told. John Henry Williams, Ted’s son, rushed his father’s body to Arizona to be cryonically preserved. Frozen, that is. Bobby-Jo Williams Ferrell, Ted’s daughter by another marriage, objected, saying Ted’s final wish was to be cremated, with his ashes scattered off the Florida Keys.

Frankly, the latter sounds more like the Ted Williams that baseball fans know.

Ferrell alleged that John Henry’s motive was greed. She related a conversation in which her half-brother said it would be “neat to sell Dad’s DNA. … There are lots of people who would pay big bucks to have little Ted Williams(es) running around.”

John Henry Williams said he merely wanted to preserve his father’s body in the hope that technology would make it possible for Ted Williams to live again. That’s the hope of many people who choose to be preserved cryonically.

Still, one of the more alarming revelations in the SI article was that some of Williams’ DNA samples were missing from the facility in Arizona. If true, that suggests that someone else got the idea that money could be made from cloning Williams.

The mind reels.

It’s 2053, and there are eight Ted Williams clones in the major leagues, all hitting over .400. The Splendid Splinter Group is battling a couple of Willie Mayses and Barry Bondses for the Triple Crown in each league.

“It sounds good, but it sounds like fiction,” said Kathy Hudson, who is director of the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University. “People have this image, like you could create a swarm of NFL linebackers from cloning. There are some dangerous notions floating around.”

The idea does have a strange sort of appeal. One of the fundamental sports truisms – that you can’t compare different eras – would be shattered. A Babe Ruth clone could face a Roger Clemens Redux. Satchel Paige could compete against the major-leaguers that he wasn’t allowed to face in his first go-round.

The idea isn’t limited to baseball. Mike Tyson could fight Muhammad Ali, who could then take on Jack Dempsey. Carl Lewis could run against Jesse Owens. Chuck Bednarik could bear down on Emmitt Smith in the open field.

Sounds cool. Ain’t gonna happen. Not now and not in 2050. There are scientists who believe that human cloning is imminent, but their reasoning goes something like this: A hundred years ago, no one thought we would get to the moon, either. That ignores not only the ethical quandaries of cloning, but also the limitations.

“We are definitely more than the sum of our genes,” Hudson said. “Replicating individuals by reproductive cloning is based on troubling motives and a flawed understanding of genetics and human individuality. There is a complex interplay between our genes and our environment.”

A clone, in other words, wouldn’t be Ted Williams with all his marvelous and unique qualities. It would essentially be Ted Williams’ twin. That means the future Ted would have the genetic starter kit to be what the original Ted became. But that doesn’t mean he’d be the same person. Jose Canseco and Ozzie Canseco are twins. So are Tiki and Ronde Barber. You want to take odds that you’d get the Barbers instead of the Cansecos.

This idea of replicating a great athlete – or artist or scientist or leader – ultimately demeans what that person achieved.

“It’s a sad notion to believe that everything is written out in our genes,” Hudson said. “It calls into question concepts such as free will.”

So Ted Williams wasn’t a great hitter because of his commitment, or because he worked hard. He was a genetically programmed hitting machine. Tiger Woods isn’t great because he has combined great ability, lifelong devotion and remarkable work ethic. His DNA is just superior to Phil Mickelson’s DNA.

You see where that kind of thinking leads. John Henry Williams is living proof that DNA only tells part of the story. He is playing minor-league baseball and, although half his genes come from Ted Williams, he is much less than half the player his father was.

The point? The horror story that has become Ted Williams is doubly tragic because it seems to be based on a deeply flawed idea. It would be sad enough if The Kid’s family was going through all this for a good reason. That doesn’t seem to be the case.

“The idea that you can re-create a person,” Hudson said, “is based on enormous speculation and false hopes.”

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(c) 2003, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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AP-NY-08-15-03 2059EDT