Detroit Free Press Magazine, Sunday, April 8, 1990:

GRANNY AT THE BAT:

LONGTIME BENGALS ROOTER REMEMBERS

By Leon “Bud” Arsenault

Loyola MacGryff hasn’t missed an opening day at Tiger Stadium since her father took her to her first game in 1908.

Mrs. MacGryff, who has lived at her present address on Trumbull near the stadium for most of her 87 years, remembers that day as clearly as if it were last Saturday.

“The colors—I never saw so many in one place at one time,” she recalls. “The men all wore straw boaters and the women were dressed like Easter Sunday. And, oh, it was noisy! People were much more vocal then. Papa asked me if I was scared. I said, ‘Oh, no, I want to see Ty Cobb.’”

And did she?

“Not that time. He was out with a groin pull, only they didn’t say that then, they just said he hurt his leg. But I saw him lots of other times.

“He wasn’t a kind man, that Mr. Cobb. Once this boy in the row in front of me leaned over the rail and touched a fly ball Mr. Cobb was running to catch and put it out of play. The Orioles scored a run on it. Well, he just jerked that boy clean out of his seat and went to beating on him till the rest of the team ran out and pulled him off.

“I never saw it in the paper, so I guess Mr. Jennings—Mr. Hughie Jennings, he managed the Tigers then—I guess Mr. Jennings made it right with the boy’s parents.

“But, my, that man Cobb could run.”

Tragically, young Loyola’s fateful first trip to Navin Field (as it was known then) had been intended for her older brother Paul, but he was in the hospital recuperating after a trolley car accident claimed both his legs.

“We wanted to bring him a souvenir ball, but we were out of luck that day so Papa bought him a pennant at the stand. He kept it on his wall till the day he died.”

Eighty-one opening days later, Mrs. MacGryff’s record remains pristine, although there have been close calls along the way.

In 1924, when it seemed that her first child would make his appearance close to that all-important date, she had the baby delivered by cesarean section two weeks early.

A flat tire and a night in jail for husband Horace when he declined to pull over for a motorcycle patrolman were the cost of a timely arrival in 1930.

“But 1935 was the closest I ever came to missing,” says this blue-eyed, apple-cheeked grandmother of eight. “Horace got beat up on the picket line at Ford’s and died of a brain hemorrhage, but I postponed the funeral a day.

“That was the year we beat the Cubs in the Series and it was grand to see Charlie Gehringer come to bat for the first time in one of his best seasons. I got my picture taken with him outside the door where the team came out after the game.”

(to be continued)