`SQUIGGY' A SQUEEGEE OF SPORTS FACTS.Byline: KAREN CROUSE David L. Lander found fame as a loathsome loser, playing Andrew ``Squiggy'' Squigman on the '70s hit sitcom ``Laverne and Shirley.'' The creep who drove a truck for the fictional Schotz brewery in Milwaukee and repulsed a generation of females was an act. Not so Lander's passion for baseball, which is as pure as a three-pitch strikeout. The Calabasas resident is a groupie, unabashedly un·a·bashed adj. 1. Not disconcerted or embarrassed; poised. 2. Not concealed or disguised; obvious: unabashed disgust. in love with the game. He is a Ken Burns documentary, only with a laugh track. The Angels have tapped Lander's knowledge by utilizing him as a volunteer scout for the past three seasons. ``If he tells you something about the history of baseball There are a number of articles about the history of baseball:
When Lander talks about baseball his tone is paternal, even if his voice still sounds like it's waiting to crack. Recently at Dodger Stadium • • [ , he sat slumped over his scoring book - the 69th in his collection, dating back to his childhood in the Bronx - and watched his beloved Pirates lose to the Dodgers, 3-1. Lander scolded the visitors for their shoddy execution in the Dodgers' two-run first inning, but there was no edge to his words. No matter how poor the play, Lander still loves the game's guardians at the end of the day. ``This is my Little League,'' he said with his arms outstretched out·stretch tr.v. out·stretched, out·stretch·ing, out·stretch·es To stretch out; extend. outstretched Adjective , the better to embrace the diamond below. Lander, 49, became a Pirates fan in the 1950s because he liked how the words ``Pittsburgh Pirates'' rolled off his tongue. (Philadelphia Phillies “Phillies” redirects here. For other uses, see Phillies (disambiguation). The Philadelphia Phillies are a professional baseball team based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. apparently didn't have the same lyrical quality.) ``It was just the alliteration alliteration (əlĭt'ərā`shən), the repetition of the same starting sound in several words of a sentence. Probably the most powerful rhythmic and thematic uses of alliteration are contained in Beowulf, ,'' Lander said. ``I loved saying it. I didn't even know where Pittsburgh was.'' He got hooked on the dramas played out every season, explaining, ``It's like the dime novels I'd read in the summertime, with all these subplots.'' His mind over the years has been a squeegee, soaking up the details of the nearly 2,000 games he has scored since 1970, including the no-hitter the Pirates' Doc Ellis pitched that year. ``Baseball,'' Lander's wife, Kathy, once said, ``is David's drug, his way of unwinding.'' Other baseball addicts seek Lander's company whenever they need a fix. He counts among his friends many major-league front offices. ``David Lander,'' said Mead, ``is one person I could talk baseball with for 24 hours Adv. 1. for 24 hours - without stopping; "she worked around the clock" around the clock, round the clock .'' Lander bent Mead's ear to the point of breaking when they first met, during a game at Yankee Stadium in the mid-'80s. Lander introduced himself to Mead, the Angels' director of public relations public relations, activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests by presenting them to the public in the most at the time, then launched into a soliloquy soliloquy, the speech by a character in a literary composition, usually a play, delivered while the speaker is either alone addressing the audience directly or the other actors are silent. on the team's numerous shortcomings A shortcoming is a character flaw. Shortcomings may also be:
``He did it in a very disarming manner,'' Mead said, laughing at the memory. Truth be told, that's about all Mead can recall of that conversation. It seems he could barely make out Lander's words over the voice in his own head that was screaming, ``YOU'RE TALKING TO SQUIGGY!'' Early-rising sports fans can call a sports-radio talk show and speak to Lander and his longtime friend Mike McKean, who played Squiggy's sleazy sidekick Lenny on the ``Happy Days'' spinoff series that made both of their characters household names. The two occasionally appear on the XTRA-AM (690) morning show hosted by Steve Mason and John Ireland. McKean is not a huge sports fan. ``I'm one of those guys who thinks the phrase `sports trivia' is a redundancy,'' McKean admitted on a recent show. Lander, said McKean, is the one who can speak passionately without a script on such topics as the WNBA WNBA Women's National Basketball Association WNBA World Ninepin Bowling Association WNBA Wannabe Nasty Boys Association WNBA Women's National Book Association, Inc. WNBA Warszawski Nurt Basketu Amatorskiego and the NASL NASL North American Soccer League (1967-1984) NASL Nessus Attack Scripting Language NASL North Alabama Soccer League NASL Naval Air Station Lemoore NASL Name, Age, Sex, Location NASL Naval Applied Science Laboratory . Maybe so. But as Lander let slip over lunch recently, McKean is the one who landed the gig playing Queen Elizabeth II in the Major League Soccer promos on ESPN ESPN Entertainment and Sports Programming Network . McKean and Lander also have lent their distinctive voices to a couple of Disney Saturday morning cartoons. In a couple of weeks, Lander will begin shooting a new movie. He plays a Russian caught up in a counterfeit operation. One of these days he'd like to play a sports writer. If Woody Allen in ``Mighty Aphrodite'' and Dylan McDermott in ``My Best Friend's Wedding'' can pull it off, why not him? ``The one thing (``Happy Days'' star) Ron Howard always promised me is that one day he was going to make a sports movie and I was going to play the role of a sports writer,'' Lander said. ``I'd say, `Oh, great, I'm going to be an extra.' '' Some things you can make light of. But one thing Lander's reverence for baseball wouldn't allow him to do is dress Squiggy in Pirates garb during the show's 7-1/2-year run. ``I see his character as the guy in the ballpark who would race a 6-year-old for a foul ball and beat him up if he didn't get it,'' Lander said. ``Squiggy's the guy who'd be drunk by the seventh inning that you wouldn't want to sit next to.'' Lander's the guy who'll make you root for extra innings. CAPTION(S): 2 Photos Photo: (1--color) Calabasas resident David L. Lander, best known as TV's ``Squiggy,'' is a baseball groupie from way back. Evan Yee / Daily News (2) David L. Lander, right, pictured with Mike McKean, of ``Laverne and Shirley'' fame is a baseball nut and volunteer scout for the Angels. Daily News File Photo |
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