‘He Could Hold More Liquor Than the Average Person.’ [Link]
Billy Herman of the Brooklyn Dodgers, on drinking with baseball fan Ernest Hemingway in Cuba in 1942:
He was a good guy, but he became a tough guy — real mean — when he was drunk. He wanted to fight. Anybody. He was a pretty good-sized man, about 6-feet-2, 235 pounds. Hugh Casey was the closest to his build so he challenged Casey to a fight. Casey wasn’t anxious to fight but Hemingway insisted. So they put on the gloves. He went right after Hughey. He tried to hit him below the belt, anywhere. He tried to kick him in the groin. He was a dirty fighter.
Finally, Casey knocked him into the bookcase, knocking it over with a large crash on the terrazzo. It was like an explosion. It woke up his wife and she came downstairs. He told her, ‘Oh, we are just playing. Go to bed, honey.’
