Alfred Manuel Martin Jr. - “Billy” b.1928-d.1989
Drinking buddies with Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford and many other teammates along with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. Got into a massive brawl with teammates (including Mantle, Ford and Yogi Berra) sticking up for Sammy Davis at The Copacabana after somebody was yelling racial slurs at Sammy. Billy will go down in advertising history as one of the pitchmen for the legendary “tastes great/less filling” Miller Lite ads of the 1970’s. He died on Christmas day driving drunk near his home in Binghamton , NY
Earnest Hemmingway- “Papa” b. 1899-d.1961
Notorious for making fun of his fellow writers who sought help with their alcoholism, Hemmingway said to F. Scott Fitzgerald (After Scott told Earnest that “alcohol bested him”) “Take your balls and throw them in the sea-If you have any balls left.” It was once said that "His drinking would have killed a less tough man." Drank in the hospital after a WWI injury, moved back to Europe during prohibition just to drink, drank on the front line of WWII when he was covering it, drank while on Safari in Africa, drank in Cuba while writing some of his best known works, created a drink while be drunk in Florida (A Papa Doble is a Daiquiri with double the amount of rum and none of the sugar) and spent some of the last years of his life drinking on his yacht while sailing the Caribbean. Known as a messy drunk, he was told by a doctor to stop drinking to save his liver, advice he ignored. He drank to alleviate pain from a bunch of random injuries (it’s suspected that most were caused while drunk) and penned most of his greatest works under the influence (he supposedly wrote standing with a pen in one hand and a drink in the other). He died from a self inflicted gunshot wound after a forced 3 month abstinence from alcohol.
Herbert Walton Gleason Jr. - "Jackie" b.1916-d.1987
Raised by a "Hard working, hard drinking" Father (that left the family when Jackie was just 10) and an "I drink because I buried my child" Mother (who fell further in the bottle when Jackie's old man left), Jackie was born with booze in his blood. Jackie's father would take him to see the pictures on Saturday, but only after a stop at the speakeasy. It was on these Saturdays where Jackie fell in love with alcohol and the stage. On of Jackie's first gigs gave him free booze and it was here that he learned people laughed when he got drunk. Only problem was Jackie never remembered his act, because he was blacked out, but he did entertain the crowd. Once Jackie started making some money he felt it was his duty to pick up tabs and buy rounds. And his daily routine of shooting scenes, going directly to the bar, closing the bar, going to after hour parties and showing up on time the next day were legendary. He created many drunkard roles on "Cavalcade of Stars" including Joe the Bartender, Rum Dum and Reginald Van Gleason III, who loved booze and the high life. Drank on set, in front of the camera, on The Jackie Gleason Show. A lover of drink, food and smoke (he smoked close to 5 packs of cigarettes a day) he also wrote some original songs and released a few albums.
Oliver Reed - "Ollie" b.1938-d.1999
He got drunk, got naked and wrestled a dude on the beach in front of a fire in the movie Women In Love and no one questioned his manhood. That's how much of a tough guy Reed was. Got into a bar fight that resulted in 63 stitches in his twenties, beat Lee Marvin in a drinking contest, and once threw up on Steve McQueen after an all night pub crawl. Almost fought Letterman when he wouldn't stop asking questions about his drinking, had a glass of whiskey poured over his head by Shelly Winters on Carson, and tried to kiss a feminist writer on an English TV show after saying "C'mon big tits, give us a kiss" - all while being stinking drunk. There are also tales of him and 36 friends drinking 60 gallons of beer, 32 bottles of Scotch, 17 bottles of Gin, 4 crates of wine and a bottle of Babycham in one sitting. He claims he drank 106 pints over two days before marrying his wife. Died at 61 of a heart attack one day after downing 3 bottles of Rum. To see some of his antics YouTube this dude.
The 1986 New York Mets
Pitcher Bobby Ojeda said "We were throwbacks. We were gimmie a steak, gimmie a beer, gimmie a smoke and get the fuck outta our way.” To me baseball and booze goes hand and hand and the 1986 Mets would have agreed. Pretty much the whole 25 man roster, excluding "The Kid" Gary Carter who didn't partake much in the drinking, loved to party down. They had a fridge stocked with booze in the clubhouse and often times the trainer would come into the locker room for a day game after a night game to find half a dozen players sleeping face down on the floor with crushed beer cans surrounding them. The trainer would wake them, give 'em a B12 shot, a couple of aspirin, a couple of cigarettes, a drink or six and send to the shower to get ready for first pitch. They were also known for drinking at a working class bar in Queens named Finn MaCools where the owner once joked that the Mets singlehandedly keep him in business in 86'. All this is enough to make them Alco-All Star's. What gives these guys legendary status is the plane ride home from Houston . After a grueling 16 inning back a forth brawl of a baseball game, the Mets finally had one more run then the 'Stros. Now it was time to celebrate. Even Carter enjoyed his share of Champagne . The problem was the game lasted over 4 hours and the plane was ready to leave. This meant most of the celebrating happened on the plane. Most times the players, manager, and coaches were the only people on the chartered flight. However, the Mets front office allowed players wives to travel with the team. This meant that they stocked the plane full of 3 times the amount of alcohol that would normally be on the flight. Let me tell you, the Mets made them pay for that decision. The team drank every last drop of alcohol, along with eating all the steak and lobster and causing hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage on the plane. From what I understand it was one of the wildest parties ever. When they landed they looked like hell and "The Straw" poured a bottle of Andre champagne over Mayor Ed Koch's head. Legend has it that Keith Hernandez didn't sleep after game 7 of the World Series until after the parade 2 days later. "You don't win a World Series drinking milk" is what Hernandez said of the 1986 season
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