Baseball scout & devotee, TV's 'Squiggy' dies

Actor David L. Lander has died from complications due to multiple sclerosis. He was 73.

While Lander was best known for playing Andrew "Squiggy" Squiggman on the popular sitcom “Laverne & Shirley,” he also scouted for the Angels and Mariners, briefly owned a Minor League team and had a role as a broadcaster in the 1992 baseball film “A League of Their Own.”

Lander’s family confirmed his passing to Variety on Saturday. Lander was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1984, though he didn’t publicly disclose his condition until ’99.

A baseball enthusiast, Lander grew up in the Bronx but was an avid Pirates fan and enjoyed rooting against the Yankees. He went on to become a minority owner of the Portland Beavers in 1980, when they were the Pirates’ Triple-A affiliate.

Lander was also an early reader of renowned sabermetrician Bill James’ “Baseball Abstract,” back when it was still self-published by James. James gave Lander a tribute Saturday on Twitter, noting that he was one of the first 100 readers of the “Abstract” and would write letters to James in the late 1970s.