Fay Vincent, who served as 8th MLB Commissioner, dies at 86

Francis T. “Fay” Vincent, who served as the eighth Commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1989-92, has passed away. He was 86.

“Fay Vincent played a vital role in ensuring that the 1989 Bay Area World Series resumed responsibly following the earthquake prior to Game Three, and he oversaw the process that resulted in the 1993 National League expansion to Denver and Miami,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “Mr. Vincent served the game during a time of many challenges, and he remained proud of his association with our National Pastime throughout his life. On behalf of Major League Baseball, I extend my deepest condolences to Fay’s family and friends.”

Vincent took office as Commissioner in September 1989 -- following the sudden death of his friend A. Bartlett Giamatti -- and served during a period that included a lockout in 1990 and the banning and eventual reinstatement of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. Vincent’s tenure ended in September 1992, when Vincent bowed to pressure to resign from 18 of the 28 owners at the time.

But while Vincent, who was replaced by Allan H. “Bud” Selig, spent a relatively brief amount of time in the Commissioner’s chair, his passion for the game, which he put to words in written pieces he contributed to various publications over the years, never wavered.

Even when his commissionership ended, Vincent wrote a letter to the editor of America Magazine in which he expressed confidence in the game’s staying power.

“From time to time, baseball fans must wonder and worry about the game we love,” he wrote. “Once again, much is being written -- if not shrieked -- about problems with the game and even with its bureaucrats. But let me remind us all that baseball will survive; our grandchildren will have baseball to love and to introduce to their grandchildren, and this latest turmoil and tumult will not destroy the game that fills our summers with the joy of wondrous play.”

A native of Waterbury, Conn., Vincent was born on May 29, 1938. He attended Williams College, where, as a freshman, he fell off the ledge outside his fourth-floor dorm window while trying to escape the room after a friend locked him inside as a prank. He broke his back and was paralyzed from the chest down for months. The initial diagnosis was that he would never walk again, but he persevered to regain the ability to walk with the assistance of a cane.

With his own athletic dreams dashed, Vincent more vigorously pursued his studies.

“The physically active life had to surrender to the life of the mind, to Gershwin and Beethoven and to reading and things visual,” he wrote in 2019. “I would never run but I could think.”

Vincent earned his law degree from Yale and went on to become a partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm of Caplin & Drysdale. He served as Associate Director of the Division of Corporation Finance of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, was the chairman of Columbia Pictures and was the senior vice president of Coca-Cola when it purchased Columbia in 1982, eventually becoming executive vice president.

It was Giamatti who convinced Vincent to become MLB’s deputy commissioner after Giamatti was elected to the commissionership in 1988. In that role, Vincent was involved in the negotiations that led to the barring of Pete Rose from baseball for betting on games.

Only eight days after Rose’s banishment, on Sept. 1, 1989, Giamatti died of a heart attack, at the age of 51. Vincent was thrust into the Commissioner’s duties, formally voted to the position by the owners 12 days later.

A sequence of major challenges arose from there.

First, the Loma Prieta earthquake erupted just prior to Game 3 of the 1989 World Series in San Francisco. Vincent made the call to delay the continuation of the Series for 10 days.

The following February, the owners locked out the players during a Collective Bargaining Agreement dispute that forced the start of the 1990 season to be delayed.

And in July 1990, Vincent made the decision to permanently ban Steinbrenner from the day-to-day management of the Yankees. Steinbrenner had paid a gambler $40,000 to dig up dirt on Dave Winfield, after Winfield had sued Steinbrenner for not making a contractually obligated payment to his foundation. Steinbrenner was reinstated by Vincent two years later.

Also on the table during Vincent’s tenure was the planning and financials related to the looming 1993 expansion that created the Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies franchises, as well as discussions about realignment.

All of these issues combined for a rocky tenure in which Vincent fell out of favor with a majority of Major League owners. Though Vincent’s term was not due to expire until March 31, 1994, 18 of the 28 issued a vote of “no confidence” during a special meeting held in September 1992. Vincent initially vowed to fight the vote in the courts and honor his contract, but he ultimately heeded their wish that he resign.

"A fight based solely on principle does not justify the disruption when there is not greater support among the ownership for my views," Vincent wrote in his resignation letter to the owners. "While I would receive personal gratification by demonstrating that the legal position set out in my August 20 letter is correct, litigation does nothing to address the serious problems of baseball. I cannot govern as commissioner without the consent of owners to be governed. I do not believe that consent is now available to me. Simply put, I've concluded resignation -- not litigation -- should be my final act as Commissioner 'in the best interests' of Baseball.”

After stepping down, Vincent became a private investor and the president of the New England Collegiate Baseball League from 1998-2004. In interviews and in his own written pieces, he remained outspoken on baseball issues. In 2002, he published his autobiography, “The Last Commissioner: A Baseball Valentine” – a book not just about his tenure as Commissioner but a love letter about a lifetime of baseball fandom.

“All through my life, I have been a collector of stories,” he wrote. “I enjoy hearing good stories and I like to tell them, too. I know of no sport that produces stories the way baseball does.”

However brief his time as Commissioner may have been, Vincent had a major role in the story of baseball.