Lange took long road to Hall of Fame

A career that began in the penalty box is headed toward the Hall of Fame.

Mike Lange, the distinctive voice of the Penguins for 26 years, will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on Nov. 12 in Toronto. He will enter as the recipient of the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for outstanding work as an NHL broadcaster.

Not bad for a California guy who didn't even see a hockey game until he was 20. Lange, who grew up in Sacramento, attended his first game in 1969 on the advice of Sacramento State classmate Len Shapiro.

'We were all going to be broadcasters, and Lenny said, 'You never know, you should probably should check out hockey,' ' Lange said Tuesday. 'I said, 'What do I know about hockey• There's a red line, a blue line, what else• I haven't got a clue about hockey.' '

'I don't think he knew what offsides were,' Shapiro said yesterday. 'I gave him a sheet with the arm signals for penalties.'

Lange, 53, got hooked watching industrial league games at a rink called Iceland. The players were mostly failed tryouts from the 1960 U.S. Olympic team in Squaw Valley. They stayed in California to find work.

Lange liked the game so much that he took a job in the penalty box. The players' entrance was next to the box, so it was Lange's job to escort the players on and off the ice.

Behind the Mike

Penguins broadcaster Mike Lange says three of his sayings generate the biggest fan response. Here's the three and Lange's story behind each:

Scratch my back with a hacksaw : 'That came from a security guard at Expo Mart in Monroeville. I was going to do a commercial, and I couldn't find the office. He said, 'It's way back in the corner.' Then he said, 'Do you take phrases?' I said, 'Sure.' He wrote it down, and the minute he wrote it down, I thought, 'It's over.' I knew it would work.'

He beat him like a rented mule : 'I heard that from a stockbroker friend of mine. I called himone day on the phone and asked him how his day went, and he said, 'They're beating me likea rented mule.'

Buy Sam a drink and get his dog one, too : 'I overheard it in a bar one night. A guy walkedin and sat down, and that's exactly what he said.'

Some other fan favorites: Great balls of fire Hallelujah, Hollywood Michael, Michael Motorcycle Get into the fast lane, Grandma, the Bingo game is ready to roll Look out, Loretta Ladies and Gentlemen, Elvis has just left the building Oh, I'll be cow-kicked Let's go hunt moose on a Harley She wants to sell my monkey He doesn't know whether to cry or wind his watch

But what really caught his fancy was listening to a man named Danny Handler call the games over a public address microphone. Some nights as many as 300 people showed up.

'It was cool,' Lange said. 'He got paid $5 a game. In the off-season, he asked for $10 a game. They couldn't do it.'

So Lange took over, calling four-on-four frays on a miniature rink. The teams were named after bars and other local businesses: the T-birds, the Argonauts and, of course, the Li'l Joe's 109's, a squad whose name changed every year depending on the price of its specials.

Lange loved it.

'Like a duck to water, he fell in love with it,' Shapiro said. 'Our scores were like 12-7, so he certainly got practice calling goals.'

The $5 came in handy, too.

'I'd run with it like a drunken sailor to drink beer next door,' Lange said. 'Either that or to Shakey's for pizza and some beer, and I'd still have money left over.'

Shapiro worked at the college radio station and got it to carry the playoff games that year. Lange kept the tapes. That's what helped him get his first job, as voice of the WHL's Phoenix Roadrunners in 1971.

'My most vivid memory of Mike is him driving off in his VW Beetle, heading off to Phoenix to try to get a job with the Roadrunners,' Shapiro said.

Lange stayed in the WHL for a few years before landing the radio play-by-play job with the Penguins in 1974. He did radio exclusively until 1979, when the games were simulcast on radio and TV. He now calls the games on Fox SportsNet Pittsburgh with partner Ed Olczyk.

When he is asked to do radio, Lange still uses the same pair of Astrolite headsets he has worn since 1976. Those headsets, he said, might be donated to the Hall of Fame.

'I love the sound,' Lange said. 'The new wave is to have a lot of bass. These don't have that. They just have a lot of clarity. You can hear the crowd, hear yourself, your words, how distinctive they are. They all claim the microphone's not as good. I'll put it up against any of 'em.'

Lange's distinctive calls - his first in Pittsburgh was 'Great balls of fire!' - endeared him to Penguins fans. His calm style made him a welcome guest in living rooms all over western Pennsylvania.

'The sayings are his trademarks, but that's not what separates him from other hockey announcers,' said Penguins radio play-by-play man Paul Steigerwald, Lange's color analyst for 16 years who now calls the games on radio. 'What separates him is his conversational style. He always had a feeling of when the games would pick up one way or another. He could convey that through the change and excitement in his voice.'

Lange said he spent a quiet night at home Tuesday after finding about his award. He is most grateful to Shapiro, the man who introduced him to sticks and pucks.

Shapiro, incidentally, wound up running a successful Bay Area pizza chain.

'He asked me to come into the business in 1976, but I was going to be a big broadcaster,' Lange said. 'It turned out pretty well for both of us.'