By Leon “Bud” Arsenault
(continued)
There are those who would look at the naked statistics of Loyola MacGryff’s life and draw the conclusion that it has been tragic.
Her brother Paul was run over at age seven by a streetcar and lost both his legs. Later, while recovering at home, he developed a blood clot that went to his heart and killed him before the ambulance could get him to the hospital.
Her husband Horace was beaten to death by strikebreakers during the labor unrest of the 1930s. He was given a pauper’s burial because there wasn’t enough money in the Depression fund for a funeral.
She has been robbed twice at gunpoint. Burglars have struck her home three times, cleaning her out once.
A grandson, Horace MacGryff III, has been missing in action in Vietnam since 1972. His grandmother was paged at Tiger Stadium during the American League Eastern Division play-offs to receive the news. She returned to her seat to watch the final two innings.
A freak accident at Tigers spring training camp six years ago has resulted in thousands of dollars of reconstructive surgery to Mrs. MacGryff’s jaw, part of which was underwritten by the ball club, but requests for more money have brought no response from attorneys employed by Tigers owner Tom Monaghan.
Despite speech difficulties and an inability to chew on the right side of her mouth, Mrs. MacGryff has resisted family urgings to take her case to court. Says she, “I’d sooner sue King Jesus.”
A great-granddaughter, Coral Louise Scyznyck, overdosed on crack cocaine at a high school dance in 1989. In the police car on the way to the hospital, Mrs. MacGryff persuaded the officers to tune in to the bottom half of a twi-night doubleheader between Detroit and Kansas City. The girl remains in a coma today.
But even though this white-haired native Detroiter has spent almost as many hours in emergency rooms and cemeteries as she has in her preferred upper deck, she would not agree that her life has been hounded by ill fortune.
She met Hughie Jennings, overheard Mickey Cochrane chewing out Goose Goslin for trying to field a grounder to first without assistance, had her picture taken with Mayo Smith, egged on Billy Martin during an altercation with an umpire, and sent an expensive necktie to Sparky Anderson on the occasion of his 60th birthday. No Tigers manager in this century has remained unaware of Mrs. MacGryff for long.
Tomorrow, in recognition of eighty-four years of unwavering support, Loyola MacGryff—housewife, retiree, great-grandmother—has been invited by the Detroit Tigers to throw out the opening ball of the 1990 season at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull.
The diminutive senior pooh-poohs comments by friends and family that the front office hopes by this token to forestall a lawsuit for medical damages.
“This makes up for that rude ticket clerk who wouldn’t honor my raincheck in 1958.”