PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Several of Mike Lange’s best friends and broadcast partners spent Thursday on the fans discussing the legacy and stories of the Penguins Hall of Fame broadcaster who died Wednesday at age 76.
From Lange inspiring Steve Mears’ career choice to Greg Brown being a part of an iconic goal call. Lange causing an obsession for Scott Ferrell to Steigy’s admiration of his partner. Bob Errey missing his friend to Eddie Olczyk being ‘crushed’. Here are the interviews on 93.7 The Fan remembering a legend.
Stanley Cup champ Tyler Kennedy
“I always remember going on the road trips and just before you go on the bus. He was standing outside, having a cigarette. He would talk to you. He would give you a little inspiration, tell you what you are doing right.”
“Always a great guy to be around. That was something I will never forget. After my career, hearing him calling a game. He is a guy that would take you out of your seat. Make you turn up the radio because of his sayings-scratch my back with a hacksaw. I don’t know if anyone else could have come up with those saying and get the response. He was such a big part of the Penguins organization.”
Stanley Cup champion and broadcast partner Bob Errey
“I remember when I was a young kid coming into Pittsburgh, a Pittsburgh draft pick. Mikey, just being a friend. I didn’t really look at him as being a broadcaster at that time. He was a friend. He asked me if he needed anything. If there was anything he could do?”
“That feeling, that aura that Mike had. I don’t even know how to put it. He carried the same kind of weight as Mario Lemieux carried for many a year. It was either let’s get Mario’s autograph or let’s get Mike Lange’s autograph. No one else mattered.”
“It is a sad day. I miss calling games alongside Mike.”
Blue Jackets announcer and former Penguins broadcaster Steve Mears
“I’m listening to him, but I’m studying him because I knew at age 10 this is what I wanted to do and he was the only reason that I wanted to choose this profession. From that point on I’m studying him, I’m imitating him. If you listen to my tapes from college and even in high school. It sounds like a kid doing a Mike Lange impression. I wanted to be like him.”
“You would get the bat signal that he was going to the Rivers Casino at 1am and I could be doing the most important thing in my life and I have to stop what I am doing because Mike is there.”
Stanley Cup champion Jay Caufield
“A legendary voice who helped bring attention to hockey in the Pittsburgh area. Certainly a voice that brought attention to hockey and of course Mario comes to down and everything goes on from there. He was one of those announcers you looked forward to hearing. It will live on forever.”
Penguins player, head coach and broadcaster Eddie Olczyk
“Just so thankful that I was able to have him in my life, not only as a broadcaster and taking me under his wing back in 2000 after I retired from the National Hockey League. So many great days and so many great nights at the Igloo. Learning from him as he was teaching me the preparation and how to become a broadcaster. I think the word I would use is ‘crushed’. Just crushed for Mikey’s family, for the Burgh, for the Penguins organization and Penguins family. He was just one of a kind.”
Pirates broadcaster Greg Brown
“There are less than a handful of people in your life that you could talk to at any time of day about anything. Mike took me under his wing and I’m unbelievably fortunate.”
Brown said it was Lange that gave him his first opportunity to do play-by-play while he was calling games with the Pirates. He also explained he had a part of a famous saying.
“I was with him one night at a bar,” Brown explained. “He was sitting there by himself and he like to zone out and not talk to anyone. He’s got a cigarette in one hand and a Miller Lite in another and my buddy, Mike Norelli, is telling me ‘Brown I’m telling you, this guy didn’t know whether to s--- or wind his watch. Mike spun around on the bar stool and said ‘what did you say’? Mike then takes a drag of a cigarette, he looks off to the distance and says ‘I like it’. He turns around and grabs a napkin and asks the bartender for a pen and jots it down. Norelli and I are going crazy. Are you going to use that as a call? He said I’m going to have to clean it up.”
For weeks he didn’t use the call. Norelli told me to call Mike and he said to be patient.
“We are listening one night to Penguin postgame and he said Lemieux shoots and scores and Hextall didn’t know whether to cry or wind his watch. Norelli and I were together in the car and we heard it and were high-fiving like we scored the goal.”
Brown said he would watch Mike’s pockets filled with napkins and paper with all sorts of ideas and Mike said he would look at all kind of ideas, but couldn’t use them all. You use the ones that just might work.
National sports host Scott Ferrell
“I think he was the greatest personality I’ve ever heard in my life in sports. He was the best play-by-play entertainer, storyteller and his shtick was second to none. I’m talking Howard Cosell, Harry Carry and Mike Lange and Lange was at the top of the list.”
“He turned me on to hockey. He made me obsessed with hockey.”
“There was nothing better in my life in 41 years of broadcasting than knowing Mike Lange. He was my best friend in the media. He was someone that I adored and admired and looked up to and I just wanted to be him. My whole life, all I wanted to be is Mike Lange and the fact that he died kills me. I want to die with him. We lost a diamond, a gem, a titan, a maverick, a stud.”
Penguins broadcast partner Paul Steigerwald
“I remember the first game I (broadcast with him) I was nervous as hell. I was absolutely sweaty and nervous and Mikey tried to keep me calm and was very kind to me. I knew pretty quickly that I was working with a guy that was so advanced. He just helped try to make me better.”
“Creativity, originality, passion to be the best. A genuine love of a sport in a way that he wanted to covey a certain feeling to the listener or viewer.”
Pirates Hall of Famer Steve Blass
“Mike Lange as a person, he really had time for everybody. He always had time and he gave that beautifully. I learned so much about broadcasting because I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. When I first started I was talking all over him all the time. Finally, we put his hand gently on my arm and said let the play happen. We can go crazy after.”
“I thoroughly decent person. He didn’t seek the headlines, they came to him. I just love him.”
Stanley Cup champion Peter Taglianetti
“People who don’t know Mike Lange or follow the Penguins have always heard people broadcast excerpts of his sayings ‘oh my God, that’s the guy’. He’s the guy that said this. They might not know who he is, but know what he said.”
“People in Pittsburgh were lucky how he brought everything to life.”
Hall of Fame hockey announcer Mike ‘Doc’ Emrick
“Mike had all of these expressions and those are the things that the people that listened loved, but when you go in the press room for a seven o’clock game at around 5:30 or 6 o’clock. He would be in the corner at a cubicle and he would be working away getting prepared for a game. That preparation is something that people wouldn’t play as much attention to, but it was always there.”
Pitt Hall of Fame broadcaster Bill Hillgrove
“He was a class act on just about every level. As a young guy your eyes are wide open, you are trying to learn. Meeting people like Mike and getting to hang with him. It’s a sad time, a sad day.”