GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- A doctor who treated Ted Williams in his last days said the baseball great's son wanted to freeze his father's body out of love and respect, not for financial gain.

John Henry Williams was a devoted son and recent reports that he is exploiting his father "have saddened us," said Dr. A. Joseph Layon, who treated the slugger at Shands Hospital at the University of Florida.

"My sense of John was of a kid who adored his dad and would do anything and everything for him," Layon told The Gainesville Sun. "I never got a sense of an exploitative relationship, or that he saw his dad as a meal ticket."

The baseball legend's daughter, Barbara Joyce Williams Ferrell, has accused her half brother, John Henry Williams, of moving their father's body from a Florida funeral home to Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., where bodies are frozen.

Ferrell says John Henry Williams wants to preserve their father's DNA, perhaps to sell it in the future.

The doctor said the son spoke of freezing his father two years ago when the three men were on an air ambulance from San Diego to Florida.

"John mentioned he had been studying cryo-preservation and wanted to do it for his dad," Layon said. "I do believe this was a manifestation of his respect, love, maybe almost reverence for his dad, maybe to keep him alive for ... people who love baseball and those who appreciate someone who gave his all.

"In that sense, it was not out of character for John. It was a meaningful, respectful thing, but I don't think it was something pathologic or exploitative," he said.

But one of Ted Williams' friends at the Hernando condominium he lived at in the 1980s described the father-son relationship as "strained," although affectionate.

"John Henry loved his dad. I don't think that ever was in question," Joe Rigney said. "I do know that he pressured his dad to sign a lot of balls."

Williams, the last major league hitter to bat better than .400 in a season, died Friday in Florida at 83.