The Line

Terry Barr, Detroit Lions, 1957
 at Briggs Stadium

It was a cold December day in 1957 between Christmas and New Years.  I was a 13-year old kid with ten dollars and some change in my pocket and on my way to buy a ticket to the NFL Championship game between the Detroit Lions and the Cleveland Browns.  This was all made possible because my grandparents came through again with the usual and much appreciated Christmas gift of a five dollar bill in one of those money envelopes that when you open the flap you see a hole with the face of a president looking out at you. And I always had a few bucks from doing odd jobs like shining Dad’s shoes or shoveling snow for the neighbors. I took a bus from our eastside Detroit neighborhood to the end of the line downtown behind J.L. Hudson Co. department store and walked maybe a mile northwest on Michigan Avenue heading to the corner of Trumbull where stood the legendary Briggs Stadium, a tall, grey ominous hulk that swallowed the space of an entire square block and looked like an impenetrable military fort built by the Third Reich.

I had been to Briggs Stadium several times on summer days with my brother or dad to see Tigers games (My dad and brother were absolute baseball fanatics.) and those outings were always a thrill. The Lions also played at Briggs Stadium, and I had never been to a Lions game – this would be my first one, and for a championship title against the hated Cleveland Browns!  

The Lions were my first and favorite Detroit sports team when I was a kid. I was infatuated with them and could name all their starters when I was 10 years old.  In fact my mother urged me to write to my favorite players and tell them I was a fan and that they would probably write back. Sure enough I wrote brief letters to several of them and they all responded (Well, the Lions PR department did.) with picture postcards with the player in uniform in an action pose on the front and a short note to me on the back. I was thrilled to get these and they became my most valuable possessions. I was a tall kid and played CYO football at St. Juliana grade school where I dreamed of playing the position of tight end someday for the Lions. So this solo journey to Briggs Stadium to buy a ticket to the Lions championship game for me was like a journey to Mecca.

I was several blocks from the stadium when I noticed on the other side of the street a small two-story building with hundreds maybe thousands of mostly men waiting in a long line stretching the length of the building.  At intervals in the line, between the sidewalk and the street, barrels with burning wood shot sparks into the air and short flames licking around the edges. The building was the main office of the Detroit Lions Football Company where the tickets for the big game were being sold. On top of the building was fixed a large neon sign emblazoned with the team’s logo – a football player in an open-face leather helmet wearing a Honolulu blue jersey running next to a real lion, the lion apparently running interference for the ball carrier. (In fact, that same neon sign was save through the years and now hangs inside Ford Field, where the Lions now play.)

The newspaper said the ticket office would open at 9 AM and it was about 8:30 AM when I first saw the building. I thought I’d get there early and beat the rush.  Boy was I wrong. I crossed Michigan Avenue and approached the line.  The line went all the way down the side street, turned at the alley behind the building and kept going around the building back out to Michigan Avenue! Thousands of people, and I’m just now getting in line. I panicked, and almost cried. But I’ve come this far, I thought. Give it a shot.

I got to the back of the line and began the wait. It wasn’t long before another hundred or so people were behind me and I felt much better knowing I wasn’t going to be the last guy in line. Soon a roar went up as the office door opened. The line moved at a snail’s pace and somebody was always cracking about speeding things up. Every couple of minutes, a fan emerged from the door triumphantly holding tickets high in the air. There was a limit – two or four, I don’t remember. General admission tickets went first for six dollars, then the bleachers for four dollars. I wore only regular shoes with thick woolen socks and my feet slowly turned painfully numb. I never would have lasted without the intermittent fire barrels.  A few police cars rolled slowly along the hand-laid brick street next to the line and occasionally a cop would mosey out and chat with the guys in line. It was all very friendly, but to me at 13, it was like I was in the strike line at the Ford Rouge Plant waiting for a riot to break out. I just wanted a ticket to the Lions game, not get my teeth knocked out.

Most men smoked in those days and it seemed everyone in line had a cigarette dangling from his mouth, exhaling smoke and steamy breath into the cold air. At about 5-feet 10 inches tall, I could look many of the men in the eye but was afraid to do so. This was 1957 Detroit, the world’s largest factory town. Everyone seemed so tough, like foundry workers, though spirits were high. Hell, they were Lions fans in the world’s greatest sports town waiting to buy championship tickets and a lot of happy banter about the weather and the big game filled the cold air.  Profanity in public was not as prominent then as now, but a few damns and hells and frequent references to guys freezing their asses off could be heard.

A small group of men sort of adopted me after I told them my story, impressed by my knowledge of the Lions and that I was there alone. Soon I was a veteran line-waiter, feeling at ease with the adult fans.  Most people were with somebody and played tag team – one waited while the other warmed up in a nearby car. A smattering of Browns fans who had made the drive from Cleveland (at a time when there were no freeways.) were among the crowd. Sections of the Detroit Free Press and Detroit Times were passed back and forth giving everybody a chance to read the entire paper. Pints of whiskey surreptitiously passed among a few of the stout hearted. Guys went for donuts, sandwiches and coffee and I was able to get my order in with somebody, keeping track of my money judiciously to have enough for the ticket and bus ride home.  The few times I had to relieve myself in a nearby alley, somebody would hold my place.

It took seven hours in line – almost four o’clock – before I was at the ticket office front door. Finally, with frozen feet and face, I got inside and felt the heavenly warmth of its tiny, crowded lobby. It was then that we were informed that Standing Room Only tickets were all that remained at five dollars each. My heart jumped at the fear that they would run out of tickets with only 50 or so fans ahead of me. So close! Finally I got to the window and carefully gave the man my grandparents’ five dollar bill. He handed me the ticket which I immediately secured inside my jacket.

Outside the office only a few hundred fans remained in line and darkness was already setting in. I turned for a last glimpse of Briggs Stadium a half block away before quickly heading back down Michigan Avenue toward Hudson’s and my bus ride home. Thrilled with my accomplishment, clutching the precious cargo in my jacket pocket, I couldn’t wait to sit at the dinner table with my parents, and my older brother (18) and older sister (15) and share my adventure. Come next Sunday, I was going to Briggs Stadium to watch my first Lions game in person as they battled Coach Paul Brown, gunslinger quarterback Otto Graham and the Cleveland Browns for the title of World Champions! Thank you Grandma and Grandpa.  (NEXT: The Game)

© Roger Lennert, January 7, 2011 Do Not Distribute.