His Sit-Com Better Than Starting Role

Oh, yeah, life as a designated sitter is just a never-ending laugh riot.

Ron Tingley runs his at-batless streak to seven weeks and, in Chicago, out of exasperation, he tells reporters, “I feel like calling the American Embassy and saying, ‘Let me out. I’ve been held hostage long enough.’ ”

Everyone laughs.

Ron Tingley makes his initial plate appearance of the 1993 season, on May 24, basically because the Angels and the Seattle Mariners are required to play 14 innings and need every spare part they can locate, and the next day, the wiseacre who types out the Angels pregame notes informs the media that Tingley “received a congratulatory phone call from the White House after last night’s plate appearance.”

Everyone laughs.

Ron Tingley delivers his first hit of the 1993 season, a second-inning single against Baltimore left-hander Jamie Moyer Sunday, and an Angels publicist tells the press box, “That hit by Tingley ends an 0-for-10 stretch.”

“Is that months?” somebody yells back.

And everyone laughs again.

On his own, Ron Tingley is a funny enough guy. His viewfinder is a bit nicked and cracked after 16 years of knocking around the bushes--so long that five of his 13 minor league stops no longer have teams--and the result is a delightfully skewed take on a game he has spent a good while observing.

Add in his present circumstance--third-string catcher on a team that has chosen to subsist on John Orton and Greg Myers alone--and the fodder for punchlines runs from here to the handsome new lounge chair in the Angel bullpen, which, Tingley says, was a gift from the ever-thoughtful Anaheim Stadium grounds crew.

“It has my name on it,” he says proudly.

Thus begins Tingley’s stand-up routine about sitting down.

How does one occupy the time when one goes two months between at-bats?

Tingley: “You contemplate suicide.”

Or you read. You have lots of time to read.

Tingley: “Just three weeks ago, my hometown paper was running a Tingley Watch--’When would that first at-bat come?’ Eventually, it was down to me and a shortstop with Toronto (Alfredo Griffin). Who would go the longest before getting his first at-bat? Then, (Dick) Schofield went down and I was declared the winner. I was the sole survivor.

“Darn the luck. I was ready to battle all year.”

The first at-bat came last Monday, followed by three more Sunday. So, after so many weeks, how does it feel, at last, to face live pitching?

Tingley: “A lot of it went right by me . . . At this point, I’m just guessing. Just get my hands extended. Four at-bats in two months. Not too much to go on.”

And about that first hit?

Tingley: “I now have an average.”

And: “I’m keeping the ball. I’ve already signed it. Maybe I’ll give it to some poor kid in a hospital.”

And: “Did you see me point toward short just before I stepped up to the plate? ‘A single to shortstop.’ I called my own shot.”

While Tingley holds court, reflecting on his first start of the season, a 7-5 Angel triumph in which Tingley caught all nine innings and went two for three with a double, teammates and friends wander by to toss in their two cents’ worth.

“Did you see our standing ovation?” asks Rick Turner, the Angel bullpen catcher.

“You want me to find you some pain pills?” publicity director Tim Mead wonders.

“I’ve got a nice cool whirlpool waiting for you,” winks Rick Smith, the team trainer.

Mead was the culprit who planted the note about the phone call from Bill Clinton. Tingley only wishes it were true. “I’d have said some things to old Bill,” Tingley says, finger wagging.

Such as?

“The first thing would be, ‘Bill, I just started making good money. How about letting me keep some of it?’ ”

That is where Tingley finds his Novocain. As Angel Manager Buck Rodgers puts it, “I told Ron this spring, ‘You’re not going to be playing much. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you’re not going to be playing much--in the major leagues.’ It’s a lot better not playing in the major leagues than someplace else.”

After Walla Walla, Santa Clara, Amarillo, Reno, Hawaii, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Calgary, Richmond, Maine, Buffalo, Colorado Springs and Edmonton, how is Tingley supposed to complain about a bench seat in Anaheim?

Finally, at 34, with nearly half his life spent in the minors, Tingley is making big league money. Maybe not earning it --not in technical terms--but cashing all the paychecks just the same.

Still, he wouldn’t mind getting up to stretch the legs more than once in a blue moon.

“I’ve resigned myself to my role as a backup catcher,” Tingley says. “But I never thought that would mean going two months between at-bats.”

Neither did Rodgers, who apologized Sunday for the oversight.

Kind of.

“It hasn’t been easy to sit out like he has,” Rodgers said. “I told him I had to get the other two guys enough at-bats and it was going to be impossible to get him the at-bats he wanted.

“But I don’t think I ever envisioned this. If I had, I’d have gone with two catchers from the start, obviously.”

All things considered, Tingley suspects he can live with that. First string in Triple-A takes a back seat to third string up here every time.