Like many of you -- yes, I'm talking to you, Henry and Elsie Hillman -- I was disappointed last week to see a non-American at the top of Forbes' list of the world's richest people.

It just seems so, well, un-American for the person whose net worth is valued at $53.5 billion to be Carlos Slim of Mexico. Last time I checked, we still kept track of billionaires by dollars, not pesos, so what gives?

In the good old days of the new millennium, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett were well ahead of Mr. Slim, whose name sounds more like he should be a shades-wearing player on the World Poker Tour than the world's wealthiest man.

But Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett started doing silly things. They started giving huge chunks of their money away to charity cases, such as the Pittsburgh school system. And that left Mr. Slim laughing all the way to the bank, and to the top of the Forbes magazine annual list of billionaires.

Mr. Slim is on record as believing it is misguided for people in his shoes -- nice shoes, too, probably the best Rockports you can get at Famous Footwear, without worrying about whether he could get a second pair at half-price -- to act "like Santa Claus."

An owner and investor in a wide range of businesses, from Mexico's state telephone company to The New York Times, Mr. Slim once said, "Our concept is more to accomplish and solve things rather than giving. ... Poverty isn't solved with donations."

That sounds like a guy who'd like to spend another year or two atop the Forbes list. Sorry, Henry. (Mr. Hillman is tied for 463rd richest in the world with an estimated $2.1 billion.)

Here's the one piece of good news for Pittsburgh about Mr. Slim. He is described as a huge baseball fan, so we no longer have to count on Mt. Lebanon's favorite native-son egomaniac, Mark Cuban (tied for 400th at $2.4 billion), as the billionaire we want to buy the Pittsburgh Pirates from the Nutting family.

Mr. Slim's business success has come from buying companies on the cheap when they've bottomed out, then reaping the benefits of their turnarounds. With not even a hundredth of his fortune, presumably, he could carry out this strategy with the Pirates.

True, he has no connection to Pittsburgh that would necessarily lead him here. Mr. Slim could first get a taste of Pittsburgh potential, however, by leasing the city's parking garages and meters. What billionaire wouldn't want to do that? Chicago billionaire Neil Bluhm (No. 655 at $1.5 billion) came in to rescue our casino, and that's a worse business deal than parking garages -- Mr. Bluhm occasionally has to pay money back to customers, instead of inhaling it all.

Put Mr. Slim in a Pirates cap in that owner's seat behind home plate that Kevin McClatchy used to occupy and everyone comes out a winner: the Nuttings make a mint; Mr. Slim gets a good view of a baseball game any time he wants; worthy players can stay here with lucrative contracts while enjoying our low cost of living; Pirate fans get an overdue winner; and the still-undersized Hispanic population of Pittsburgh grows by one.

Remember, when it happens -- you heard it here first.

There was a time when Pittsburghers might have dominated the Forbes list, if there had been a Forbes list back in the days of Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick. Instead, we have to take pride now primarily in how old we are.

Agnes Wetzel of Bethel Park moved up a notch on the list of the world's oldest people last week when the oldest American, Mary Josephine Ray, died in New Hampshire, 114 years and 294 days after her birth.

That leaves Ms. Wetzel, who turned 110 in October, as 65th oldest in the world and 18th in the United States, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which tracks and certifies all of the world's supercentenarians -- those 110 or older.

To The Morning File's knowledge, Pittsburgh has never had a world's-oldest-person title-holder -- though it is a status that seems to be passed from person to person with relative frequency.

Pittsburghers have excelled in all kinds of endeavors in the past century -- football, marbles, reality television shows and many similarly important realms. With our current demographics, it would be even better in the 21st century if we could excel at living a really, really long time. That's something Mr. Slim can't buy with all the money in the world.

Here's hoping Ms. Wetzel leads the way.

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