Boxer Hemingway Laced His Punches With Tips To His Sparring Partners

"So Hemingway just grabbed Shine [ Forbes] by his two ears and shook him. By that time about four or five policemen got into the ring, and they wanted to arrest Geech. Hemingway told them, 'No, don't arrest him. Anytime a man's got guts enough to take a punch at me, he's all right.' And Geech was such a small man, and Hemingway was a big man.

"The fight went on for about two more rounds, and then Hemingway stopped the fight. This is when we got friendly with Hemingway."

"I didn't know who he was," Forbes remembers. "Nobody told me. I thought he was some bum trying to pick up on a dollar. When I got home my mother said, 'Do you realize who you just took a punch at? It was Mr. Ernest Hemingway, the famous writer.' I went over to Hemingway's house that night to apologize. Hemingway shook my hand, and then he challenged me to come over the next day. That's when our sparring began."

Hemingway would spar with Forbes and Roberts—amicably—in a portable ring set up in front of the pool house, which was also Hemingway's workroom, near the long swimming pool on the grounds of what is now the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum. Hemingway had two speed bags and a heavy bag and three kinds of gloves—eight-, 10- and 16-ounce.

"We'd go about three or four rounds with Hemingway," Roberts said. "I was the only one he was kind of leery of, on account of my weight. We were pretty young, and Hemingway was older than us [in his 30s], but he'd give us a tussle. I didn't wear any headgear, but Hemingway did. Geech didn't wear any headgear, either.

"He paid us to fight with him. He was crazy about us. When he was in Key West, we would go over to his house once or twice a week and spar with him and we would get money from him. He would never let us spend anything, because he'd do all the spending. Anytime we wanted to use any of the equipment, we could go over there.

" Hemingway loved beer, even when he came to the arena. Next door was a beer and liquor joint, and he'd buy a case of beer and he'd sit there and drink it and give it to his friends. He would drink beer sometimes when we were sparring. He was pretty active."

There was little conversation during the sparring sessions, but Hemingway shared his boxing knowledge with the young Key West fighters. "He'd have something to tell you if you were holding your arms too low, or if you were hitting too low," says Forbes. "I used to have to get in and get out because he was right there. I had to dodge him, and sometimes I'd go a little too low.

"He caught me one time and sailed me across the place, but it didn't hurt me too much because the gloves were big. And when he hit you like that he'd say, 'You all right? You all right?' and he'd check and make sure you were all right. He didn't want to hurt you.

"I think he would pull the punches, but sometimes you just can't pull the punches. I told him not to pull the punches. I used to tell him to go ahead and turn loose. He was a nice guy; he didn't want to hurt us."