Humphrey's Triple - Nixons Revenge (1980)

Mr. P grew up a California Angels baseball fan in a LA Dodger town and for many years had to put up with the hopelessness and lack of succor that came with it, as the Angels seemed continually doomed to constant flailing about and last place finishes.

By 1978, however, two major changes came about. For one thing, Mr. P had graduated from high school and was running around with the Gorillas and the rock and roll band Stratus. For another, the Angels had dived head first into the new era of player free agency and had signed a number of star players to their roster, enough to suddenly make them a contending team and favorites to win their division. With a renewed sense of optimism, Mr. P gleefully attended the 1978 Angels season opener at Anaheim Stadium against the once-proud but now lowly Oakland Athletics.

Oddly enough, despite a lineup with proven sluggers like Joe Rudi, Don "Groove" Baylor and Ron Fairly, the Angels were engaged in a tight pitching duel between their star left-handed pitcher Frank Tanana and a hard luck righthander named Rick Langford, who despite his 8-19 record the previous year, blew down the Angels lineup like he was Cy Young, allowing only one hit through the first five innings, after which the score remained 0-0.

Leading off the 6th inning was reserve catcher Terry Humphrey, playing only because newly acquired Brian Downing was hurt. Incredibly, the little-regarded and slow-afoot Humphrey slugged a triple, stunning everyone, and then came around to score the only run in the Angels 1-0 victory. In a lineup of ringers, it was the most overlooked player who came up with the big hit.

Unfortunately for the Angels, there were not quite enough big hits in the year 1978, as they fell short of the division title. However, since the Big A was only 20 minutes away from Diamond Bar and unreserved field level seats were only $2.50, Mr. P and friends spent a lot of time at the old ballpark and that trend carried over to the next year, 1979, when the Angels would win their first ever division title.In fact, so fired up was Mr. P that year that he collected the entire set of Topps baseball cards. Upon examination of Terry Humphrey's card, one statistic stuck out above all the rest - the one lone triple garnered by Humphrey. Since by this time the idea of a Nixons Revenge was fully in force, Mr. P knew that this statistic was worthy of a song.

The words came easy. The problem was how to set them to music. The Gorillas spent a lot of time at the old ballpark that year, usually loaded, and sat through inning after inning of Angel organist Shay Torrent's delightfullly off-key riffs designed to "fire up" Angel fans when it was time for them to make noise. It was soon decided that the melody of "Humphrey's Triple" would be these very same riffs - starting with the slow "Duh duh duh ta duh - Charge!" riff (in which Torrent would always inexplicably blow the final note) and then going into the "Doot doot doot - doot doot doot" (which would then go one octave higher) which leads into a Gene Autry western style strum. The song came together well in time for the Nixons Revenge San Dimas backyard party show.

Although only played once by Nixons Revenge, the song was never far from Mr. P's mind and when Desperation Squad was formed, "Humphrey's Triple" was included in the first set list, and remained for many years as a certifiable crowd favorite, despite the fact it wasn't really a rock and roll song. It was at D-Squad's second gig, the legendary "Rock Wars" show at the PVA, where Tim Allyn flew off the stage and engaged in a brawl with audience members during "Humphrey's Triple". Though rarely played today, it remains possibly the greatest, though (typically, for D-Squad) most obscure baseball song of all time.

Though Mr. P tried his best to remain faithful to the story of Humphrey's Triple, upon inspection of newspaper documents some errors have been uncovered in the song lyrics. For example, the lyrics indicate that Humphrey got his hit after the 7th inning, when in fact it was the 6th inning. Also, former Cal Poly Pomona star Mitchell Page was fingered in the song as the outfielder "caught spacing" who let the ball get past him. This is untrue. It was Miguel Dilone. Page did not even play in the game. And perhaps the best line "when Humphrey scored on the sacrifice fly" is also an error. Humphrey scored on a clean single to right field by Rick Miller. (The reason for the discrepancies is that in 1979 Mr. P was trying to reconstruct the game from memory, having failed to save a copy of the next days newspaper. It was only years later, when he located the box score on a microfilm did Mr. P realize his errors, which he considered too trivial to correct)

The Streak: Mr. P has attended every Angels home opener since the 1978 Humphrey's Triple game, a streak now spanning over 25 years!

The Pioneer: Upon doing some internet research, it is revealed that Shay Torrent was somewhat of a keyboard pioneer, as he apparently was the first to demonstrate the Hammond F-100 model organ back in 1960!

The Reporter: The Los Angeles Times reporter who covered the game was a beat reporter named Scott Ostler. If the name sounds familiar, it should. After a long career at the Times, Ostler moved to the slightly ahead of its time sports paper, The National. When it folded he moved to the Bay Area and has worked ever since for the San Francisco Chronicle in various capacities.

The Postscript: Call it serendipity or just plain chance, Mr. P and Terry Humphrey shared more than one exciting moment together. In fact, Mr. P was somewhat of a good luck charm for Humphrey when he attended games that Humphrey was placed in the starting lineup. Besides the 1978 home season opener, Mr. P also saw Humphrey smack a three-run home run in a win against the Minnesota Twins in 1977.

However, the most bizarre game took place on May 2, 1979. The Angels were playing the World Champion New York Yankees in Anaheim, in a sold-out game attended by Mr. P and his brother. In one of the great pitching matchups of that or any season, the Angels fireballer Nolan Ryan was facing Cy Young award winner Ron Guidry, who had a 25-3 record in 1978. According to newspaper reports, 10,000 fans were turned away at the gate. The game fufilled every bit of its promise. Both Ryan and Guidry pitched complete games. Humphrey, in his first start of the season, got to Guidry for a single in the 4th inning and came around to score, get this, the only run of the game, which the Angels won 1-0!

By this time, Humphrey was at least the third string catcher on the team and was released a few months later, effectively ending his career. He only had 17 at-bats that year - and one hit! Which, of course, Mr. P was there to see first hand.

When, and if, the appropriate time comes for a sequel, it will be a snap to come up with "Humphrey's Hit".

The Angels were favored to win the West
It was the season opener, opening night
The A's were sorry, barely fielded a team
The Halos had the best lefty in the major leagues