By Leon “Bud” Arsenault
(continued)
The parlor of the house on Trumbull that has seen Mrs. MacGryff from infancy to old age contains enough Detroit Tigers memorabilia to fill a wing at Cooperstown.
Here is a pair of scuffed and curling high-topped athletic shoes said to have been worn by Ty Cobb, which if a good forensic pathologist were to put them to the test would probably yield up the blood and tissue of a hundred third basemen from the cleats; here, on a stand, a ball scribbled all over with the faded signatures of the Detroit 1940 World Series team, including Greenburg and Gehringer; up there on the wall, cancer-spotted with mildew and gnawed by moths, a pennant found in a junk shop, advertising a forgotten team known as the Detroits.
Dregs, sighs Mrs. MacGryff.
The bulk of her collection was never recovered after the 1968 burglary.
“I had a complete set of Rudy York cards from 1934 to 1945,” she laments, “and a scorecard signed by Schoolboy Rowe. It was hard to read because it was the year he hurt his shoulder. Anybody who didn’t know what it was might have just thrown it out. So many things. But I still have my memories.”
Seized with a sudden inspiration, the rotund matron bounces out of her padded rocker and stands on tiptoe to take down a wooden bat from atop a bookcase crammed with Tiger Yearbooks. It is smeared with pine tar and bears the famed Louisville trademark.
“It was presented to me personally by Lou Whitaker in 1984. It wasn’t his favorite; he asked for that one back after he hit me in the mouth with it.”
The occasion was spring training for the Tigers’ remarkable championship season. Mrs. MacGryff’s children and grandchildren pooled their resources to send her to the Florida camp as an early Mother’s Day present.
Swinging at a Dan Petry fastball, Sweet Lou missed and lost his grip on the bat, which spun end over end into the stands and smashed into Mrs. MacGryff’s jaw.
While recovering from emergency oral surgery at Lakeland Memorial Hospital she received a visitor.
“Lou brought me flowers and this bat. I was groggy from the anesthetic and my jaw was wired. I don’t know now if I thanked him properly at the time.
“Whenever I look at the bat, or take out my upper and lower plates, I think of that wonderful spring. I’m just sorry I was too busy going in and out of hospitals that season to watch most of the games. I missed the play-offs entirely.”
Lou still sends her a Christmas card every year. (to be continued)