Fay Vincent was a former Major League Baseball commissioner who helped guide it through the 1989 earthquake, a 1993 expansion of the National League, and other key milestones in the sport.
- Died: February 1, 2025 (Who else died on February 1?)
- Details of death: Died in Vero Beach, Florida of bladder cancer at the age of 86.
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Fay Vincent’s legacy
Though he only served as Major League Baseball’s eighth commissioner for three years, from September 1989 to September 1992, Vincent left a mark on the sport that is still felt to this day, one that includes new teams, battles with some of the game’s most notorious personalities, and more.
Vincent graduated cum laude from Williams College and went on to Yale Law School, eventually becoming a partner at the law firm Caplin & Drysdale in Washington, D.C. His work there propelled him to high-profile executive roles, including tenures as chairman of Columbia Pictures and later as senior vice president of Coca-Cola.
He was named deputy commissioner of Major League Baseball in 1989 but had to step into its head position sooner than expected when then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti (1938–1989) died only five months after taking the job. Vincent was unanimously elected his close friend’s successor. His brief tenure would end up being a tumultuous one.
Weeks after Vincent was sworn in, an earthquake struck the Bay Area in California just before Game Three of the World Series between the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants. The disaster interrupted the series, and more broadly, took 63 lives and did extensive damage to the region. Vincent oversaw the process as the World Series was delayed 10 days.
There was no return to normalcy the next season. Team owners locked players out during spring training in the midst of a dispute over proposed salary caps, threatening the start of the 1990 season. Vincent ended up being central to securing a deal between players and ownership, a role owners would hold against him in the years ahead.
Later that year, he banned New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner (1930–2010) from the sport after it was revealed that Steinbrenner had paid a gambler to dig up dirt on Yankee outfielder Dave Winfield, with whom Steinbrenner had frequently clashed. And though the effort was spearheaded by his predecessor, Vincent was part of the negotiating team that led to the agreement to ban Pete Rose (1941–2024) from baseball for betting on games. Shortly prior to leaving the MLB commissioner’s chair, he also oversaw the expansion of the National League, which led to the creation of the Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins.
Vincent did not see eye-to-eye with team owners, who felt he wielded too much authority and did not serve their interests. These tensions culminated in September 1992, when he faced a mutiny led by a coalition of owners, resulting in his forced resignation. He never returned to the MLB in an official capacity.
His 2002 autobiography, “The Last Commissioner: A Baseball Valentine,” is both a love letter to the sport and a detailed account of his time with Major League Baseball. Vincent continued to comment on the sport long after his time as commissioner was over, too, speaking out against steroid/PED use and other issues he believed impacted the overall integrity of baseball.
Notable quote
“There’s something about baseball. There’s a certain lighthearted appeal. Baseball is a bunch of guys sitting around a lobby waiting for the ballgame to come up and for them to go out and play.” — interview with the Society for American Baseball Research, 2015
Tributes to Fay Vincent
Full obituary: The New York Times
