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Told he had only months to live, he headed south. St. Petersburg would soon become the beneficiary of Uncle Al's love for baseball and for his adopted city.
On his deathbed in 1960, Al Fielding Lang refused to allow his sense of humor to expire.
"Do you know me?" the Rev. Paul Hortin asked his devoted parishioner. Lang eyed his pastor and said, "Never heard of you."
The Rev. Hortin told the story to 1,000 mourners at Lang's funeral in Christ Methodist Church. Some 2,000 more sympathizers waited outside.
Many loved "Uncle Al." He had three loves: his wife, baseball and "Spetersburg," as he called it.
Before coming to St. Petersburg in 1910, Lang was told he had six months to live. During the next 50 years, he would become the city's first aggressive mayor. He was St. Petersburg's ambassador of baseball. He made St. Petersburg's benches green.
Friends recalled how Lang would fill his car with groceries for the poor. How he always wore impeccable clothes with his smile. How thrifty he was.
"Yes, I value a dime," Lang said. "A dime was big money in our house. It represented 10 pennies."
Born in Pittsburgh in 1870, Lang quit school at age 14 to earn more for his family's "scant table" at a hotel patronized by visiting foes of the Pittsburgh Pirates.