Al Lang was the most famous and beloved St. Petersburg citizen. He is best known for bringing spring training baseball to Florida and for his efforts to beautify the city.He also owned a home in the Jungle, was instrumental in the Jungle golf course's development, and was president of the Jungle Country Club.
Walter P. Fuller writes "except for a brief hiatus following the boom, Lang was the genial and tireless glad-hand president of the Jungle Club for some 15 years. Most of that time he lived across the street from the Jungle Club, usually greeted the first and the last players to tee off for the day and was loud, cheerful and friendly around the locker room all day."
Lang grew up in Pittsburgh and was a baseball fan. His childhood friend Barney Dreyfuss parlayed business success and love of baseball into ownership of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Lang was a successful businessman, too. His laundry business grew to be the largest in Pittsburgh ‒ a smoggy, grimy city with a big demand for his services.
At the age of 39, Lang's doctor informed him that he had less than a year to live. His lungs were damaged from chemicals at his laundry and Pittsburgh's poor air quality. St. Petersburg had a reputation as the healthiest city in America, so Lang moved here in 1910 just hoping to add a few years to his life. Instead, he recovered completely and lived to age 89. "The Sunshine City" saved his life. He became active in civic affairs, promoting the city's health benefits and helping lead St. Petersburg to international recognition as a tourist destination.
Lang and other civic leaders of the early 1900's envisioned the future of St. Petersburg as a seasonal attraction, a healthy balm for those wishing to escape northern winters. Of those leaders, it was Al Lang who had connections with major league baseball executives. Using his influence and persuasion, he brought spring training baseball to St. Petersburg and then to the rest of Florida ‒ and that brought newspaper writers, fans and publicity.
In 1914, Lang persuaded the St. Louis Browns to train in St. Petersburg and the next year the Philadelphia Phillies set up camp here, too ‒ that team would win the World Series.
About the same time that baseball was arriving in St. Pete, civic leaders ‒ including H. Walter Fuller ‒ began building a golf course in the Jungle. Other Florida cities were attracting tourists with golf. The city's businessmen knew a golf course was essential for St. Petersburg's image. When the map of the Jungle golf course and subdivision was submitted to Pinellas county for approval in 1915, there were two signatures on the document ‒ H. Walter Fuller and Albert F. Lang.
In 1916, Lang was elected the first president of the Jungle country club and he was given the honor of driving the inaugural ball onto the fairway on opening day.
That same year, Lang was elected mayor of St. Petersburg. Since his Jungle home was just barely outside city limits, he was required to move to a residence in the city. But he continued to maintain his Jungle "vacation" home and he remained active in Jungle affairs.
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1925 - Babe Ruth, Al Lang, and Yankee manager Miller Huggins at the Jungle Country Club. Ruth and Lang are sitting on a "green roller," a heavy cylinder filled with water and dragged across a green to level the surface. In the background: a storage shed for maintenance equipment and seed. (colorized)
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Lang grew up in Pittsburgh and was a baseball fan. His childhood friend Barney Dreyfuss parlayed business success and love of baseball into ownership of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Lang was a successful businessman, too. His laundry business grew to be the largest in Pittsburgh ‒ a smoggy, grimy city with a big demand for his services.
At the age of 39, Lang's doctor informed him that he had less than a year to live. His lungs were damaged from chemicals at his laundry and Pittsburgh's poor air quality. St. Petersburg had a reputation as the healthiest city in America, so Lang moved here in 1910 just hoping to add a few years to his life. Instead, he recovered completely and lived to age 89. "The Sunshine City" saved his life. He became active in civic affairs, promoting the city's health benefits and helping lead St. Petersburg to international recognition as a tourist destination.
Lang and other civic leaders of the early 1900's envisioned the future of St. Petersburg as a seasonal attraction, a healthy balm for those wishing to escape northern winters. Of those leaders, it was Al Lang who had connections with major league baseball executives. Using his influence and persuasion, he brought spring training baseball to St. Petersburg and then to the rest of Florida ‒ and that brought newspaper writers, fans and publicity.
In 1914, Lang persuaded the St. Louis Browns to train in St. Petersburg and the next year the Philadelphia Phillies set up camp here, too ‒ that team would win the World Series.
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| St. Petersburg Times, March 5, 1916. At the time, the Jungle course was called "the Country Club at Davista." |
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| Link to full map. |
In 1916, Lang was elected the first president of the Jungle country club and he was given the honor of driving the inaugural ball onto the fairway on opening day.
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| St. Petersburg Evening Independent Jan 1, 1916 |
That same year, Lang was elected mayor of St. Petersburg. Since his Jungle home was just barely outside city limits, he was required to move to a residence in the city. But he continued to maintain his Jungle "vacation" home and he remained active in Jungle affairs.
"An amusing situation developed around [Al] Lang's first election [as mayor of St. Petersburg in 1916]. H. Walter Fuller had given him and A F. Thomasson two choice Boca Ciega Bay waterfront lots just north of Fifth Avenue North, if they would build homes and live there. The move of course was to give the struggling new development status and class. But unhappily for Lang, his home was immediately north of the city line, and here he was running for mayor. So he quietly, with the full approval of Fuller, "moved" to an apartment downtown but took many a long "vacation" to the country."
‒ Walter P. Fuller, St. Petersburg and Its People.
With Lang's support, Waterfront Park was built in 1923, improving the city's appeal as a training site and attracting the New York Yankees ‒ including mega-celebrity Babe Ruth ‒ to St. Petersburg.
When the Yankees arrived in 1925, Lang introduced Babe Ruth to the Jungle Country Club. Over the next decade, Ruth would play the course over a hundred times ‒ it would be an important part of his pre-season conditioning program.
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| St. Petersburg Times Feb 9, 1926 |
A new stadium ‒ Al Lang Field ‒ was built at the Waterfront Park site in 1947. It has been through several renovations and today is home to the Tampa Bay Rowdies soccer team.
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| Citation: Charlie's Big Baseball Parks Page |
