Thompson’s off-the-field behavior had been a problem throughout his baseball career. He began drinking as a teenage semipro player and admitted to being an alcoholic by the age of 17. In the service he went AWOL on one occasion and spent time in the stockade for fighting on another. He liked to carry a gun, which led to his killing a man before joining the Giants. In 1953 a violent altercation with a cab driver made headlines, prompting the black publication Our Sports to publish a profile of Thompson entitled “Problem Child?”
Stanley Glenn, a catcher with the Negro League Philadelphia Stars before entering Organized Baseball said, “Hank was a little bit off-center. He had a drinking problem and a woman problem. … But he was all baseball on the field.”
Former Monarchs teammate Sammy Haynes remembered, “He (Thompson) had a lot of little kid in him … but he had a temper and liked to play rough.”
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