Tryout Is a Triumph for Fetchel : Baseball: Former Titan reliever impresses Angels with fastball and lands minor league contract.

Tony Fetchel dusted off his glove and headed to the familiar grounds of Titan Field at Cal State Fullerton with nothing to lose except the $3 he paid to park.

After the former Titan relief pitcher buzzed a dozen 90 mile-per-hour fastballs off the mound, he was pulled aside and offered a minor league contract.

It was the kind of ending the 250 recently released or retired players who showed up for the Angels’ tryout Saturday night had envisioned, but Fetchel was one of only two players who was immediately signed.

“I’m ecstatic about it,” Fetchel said. “To be honest, I wasn’t even going to try out. But I thought about it, prayed about it, and decided I’ve got nothing to lose.”

Although his signing was a rarity at the tryout, the route that led him out of baseball was similar to the others around him.

In 1992, Fetchel was enjoying a successful junior year at Cal State Fullerton in which he was 3-2 with 30 strikeouts in 13 innings as a bullpen stopper.

However, an arm injury forced him out of action and by the time he returned for the 1994 season, the scouts had practically forgotten about him.

He did earn a victory in the Midwest Regionals on the day the Titans advanced to the College World Series. But halfway through his first year playing double-A ball in the independent Northern California League, his father died and Fetchel left the team for good.

Six months later, the 23-year-old right-hander held his contract in hand and proclaimed he is ready to resume his once promising career.

“This is for my father,” Fetchel said, holding the contract in the air. “I’ll go anywhere they send me.”

For others, such as Mathis Huff and Randy Waggoner, the tryout was a chance to sport their old minor league uniforms and compare war stories of long bus rides through barren countryside.

“Our bathroom was out one time and we had a 7 1/2-hour bus ride from Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., to Burlington, Iowa,” said Waggoner, 38, who has been out of pro baseball since 1977.

“My longest bus trip was from Salt Lake City to Medicine Hat, Canada,” said Huff, 30, who played professionally in Asia for five years and is in production control for Toshiba in Irvine.

At the entrance to Titan Field, Angel scout Tom Davis hollered at the men: “You guys better not be lying to me about playing in the Frontier League. We have lists, you know.

“We found five or six kids (at the amateur tryouts) last night that were great athletes who played football and basketball, but never messed with baseball because they were always practicing the other sports,” Davis said.

The Angels called back 79 of the 891 who tried out Friday night for a scrimmage today with the holdovers from Saturday, Davis said.

Asked if any of these players might stick around even if the labor dispute is settled, Davis said: “Oh yes, the younger kids that have showed themselves to be athletes could definitely get signed to a minor league contract.”