The former Commissioner of the Major Baseball League, Fay Vincent, died at the age of 86 on Sunday due to the complications of bladder cancer. Current commissioner Rob Manfred released the following declaration::
“Fay Vincent played an essential role by ensuring that the Bay Area World Series 1989 resumed responsible for the earthquake before match 3, and he supervised the process that led to the expansion of the League National of 1993 in Denver and Miami.
Vincent was a commissioner of September 13, 1989 – shortly after the death of the predecessor Bart Giamatti – until September 7, 1992.
Although Vincent served a relatively short mandate as a commissioner, he supervised several monumental events. These include a lockout in 1990, Pete Rose’s Continued Ban from Baseball (Rose Applied for Reinstatement, But Vincent Never Actd on the Application), The Ban of Then-Yankees Owner George Steinbrenner, and, As Manfred Said in Histment, Expansion Plans for THE Rocky And Marlins.
As Manfred noted, one of the greatest challenges presented to Vincent as a commissioner was the earthquake of Loma Pieta which interrupted the World Series of 1989 between the A and the Giants.
Another note of note during Vincent’s mandate as a commissioner was the Roger Maris Home Run record of 61. Previously, Mlb had judged that Maris 61 and 60 of Babe Ruth should be listed side by side, while Ruth struck his 60 in a 154 game season while the husband’s record took place in 162 games. Under the “Committee for the Statistical Precision” of Vincent, the 61 of Maris was deemed the only and the only record of the Home Run.
Vincent was born on May 29, 1938 in Waterbury, Connecticut. He attended the Williams College in Massachusetts and suffered an almost deadly accident in the first year. He was locked in his room like a farce and he came out through a window to try to escape, fall and fracture the spine. He was initially paralyzed from the chest down and the diagnosis was that he would never work again. He overcome the injury to walk again, although he needs a cane for the rest of his life.
After the college, Vincent became a lawyer in Washington DC before being associated director with the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States. He later became president of Columbia Pictures, then vice-president of Coca-Cola. He entered baseball via Giamatti, one of his friends. After the sudden death by Giamatti of a heart attack, Vincent was plunged into the role of the acting commissioner and several days later, were officially voted as a commissioner. In 1992, with a vote of “no confidence” of 18 of the 28 ownership groups at the time, Vincent ended up resigning from the post. He was succeeded by Bud Selig.
“A fight based solely on the principle does not justify the disturbance when there is no more appropriate support among my opinions,” wrote Vincent in his letter of resignation (via mlb.com). “While I would receive personal gratuity by demonstrating that the legal post set out in my letter of August 20 is correct, the dispute does nothing to solve the serious problems of baseball. I cannot govern as a commissioner without the consent of the owners to the owners Being governed.
