New York (AP) – Fay Vincent, who became an unexpected baseball commissioner in 1989 after the death of A. Bartlett Giamatti, then was forced three years later by the owners determined to confrontation Labor with the players, died. He was 86 years old.
Vincent had undergone radiation and chemotherapy for bladder cancer and developed complications that included bleeding, said his wife, Christina. He asked that the treatment be stopped and died on Saturday in a hospital in Vero Beach, Florida.
“Mr. Vincent served the game for a period of many challenges, and he remained proud of his association with our national hobby throughout his life,” said current commissioner Rob Manfred in a press release.
A lawyer who became director of a film studio at the request of a university friend, Vincent had been withdrawn for three decades and lived in New Canaan, Connecticut and Vero Beach.
During his three-year mandate as a commissioner, Vincent had a series of what he called “three days-cigar”, angry with the owners by becoming the first manager to admit collusion among the Teams against free agents after the 1985, ’86 and ’87 seasons. He suspended the George Steinbrenner of the Yankees, divided the expansion costs between the two leagues, tried to force the realignment of the National League and negotiated a regulation which ended a lockout of spring training in 1990.
“I had the conviction that the commissioner was a public trust. I tried to do what I thought to be best for the game and the public that cared about it as much, “said Vincent in an interview in 2023 with the Associated Press. “I had mixed results. Sometimes I am satisfied with what I did. The tragedy of baseball is the greatest thing I left to a term was to build a decent relationship between the owners and the players. I thought someone would take over after me and would do it. If I died tomorrow, it would be the big regret, it is that the players and the owners still have to engage towards each other to be partners and build the game. ”
Born on May 29, 1938, Vincent was a lawyer in securities when he was hired in 1978 as president and chief executive officer of Columbia Pictures Industries Inc. by Herbert Allen Jr., who had known him under the First cycle name at Williams College.
Vincent has remained a business manager for a decade, then has only been with a law firm for a few months when he was invited to become assistant by Giamatti, a friend since they met during ‘A party in Princeton in the 1970s.
Giamatti, the former president of Yale, was president of the NL of June 1986 until Peter Ueberroth was as a commissioner in April 1989. Giamatti charged Vincent to supervise the investigation on the career game, Leader Pete Rose, and Vincent hired lawyer John Mr. Dowd to lead an investigation. This led Rose to accept a life ban in August.
Giamatti died of a heart attack on September 1, and Vincent was elected commissioner by owners 12 days later and received a mandate of 4 1/2 years.
Vincent’s first world series is interrupted by the Loma Pieta earthquake, which struck half an hour before the start of match 3 at the Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Vincent was congratulated for a period of 10 days before the resumption of the series.
“It becomes very clear for us in Major League Baseball that our concerns, our problem, are rather modest,” he said.
His first full season as a commissioner began after a 32-day spring training lockout. The agreement he has reached in anger the owners looking for greater management gains, a group led by Bud Selig from Milwaukee Brewers and Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago White Sox.
In July 1990, Vincent signed an agreement with George Steinbrenner by virtue of which the main owner of the New York Yankees resigned from his functions as a general partner because of his transactions with a payment of $ 40,000 to A Gambeler, Howard Spira, To find embarrassing information on Minister Dave Winfield. Vincent then restored Steinbrenner in 1993.
Last June, Vincent judged that the American League had to receive $ 42 million out of $ 190 million in expansion fees due to the National League adding Colorado and Miami in 1993. He also ordered the two leagues Providing players also for the expansion project and in any future expansion money is also divided between all clubs.
In July 1992, he ordered the realignment of the NL for the following year, moving the Cubs of Chicago and the Cardinals of Saint-Louis to the West Division in 1993, and the Braves of Atlanta and the Reds of Cincinnati at the ‘East. The Cubs obtained an injunction before the Federal Court and the plan was abandoned after the departure of Vincent.
In mid-August, Selig and Reinsdorf gained sufficient support to provoke the president of the Al Bobby Brown and the chief of NL Bill White to call a special meeting aimed at ousting Vincent. The owners approved a non-confidence resolution in a vote of 18-9 on September 3. After a weekend of reflection at his home in Cape Cod, Vincent left four days later, during the Labor Day.
“The commissioner must monitor the fans, and the owners do not want to hear this idea for me,” said Vincent.
Selig was installed as president of the Executive Council, a new position which made him active commissioner. He led the owners through a strike of 7 1/2 months in 1994-1995, was elected commissioner in 1998 and stayed at work until his retirement in 2015.
Anglophile for a long time, Vincent wanted to decompress and rent the Mill house in the village of Berkshire of Sutton Courtenay during the first six months of 1993. Living in the house of the former British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, Vincent frequently diverted visitors During his sabbatical.
Francis Thomas Vincent Jr. was born on May 29, 1938 in Waterbury, Connecticut. His father, Francis, was a star of football and baseball in Yale in the 1930s and became a university football official. His mother, the former Alice Lynch, was a housewife.
Vincent was a tackle and a center of Williams until he breaks his back during his first year, falling four floors from an icy edge in front of his dormitory after his roommates locked him like a farce. His left leg was partially paralyzed and he walked with a cane. Vincent, a Roman Catholic, gave up thoughts of Jesuit training due to the injury. However, he managed to finish his studies on time and graduated Phi Beta Kappa.
“I was lucky in many ways – especially I survived this terrible accident and that I have been paralyzed for so long,” said Vincent in 2023. “I cannot have any regrets.”
He went to the Yale Law School, began as an acquisition at Whitman & Ransom in New York in 1963 and stayed there for five years.
In 1968, he moved to Caplin & Drysdale to charter in Washington and to practice the values of securities there for almost 10 years, becoming a partner. In March 1978, he left the company to become associate director of the finance division of Securities and Exchange Commission companies. His stay was rather brief.
Allen, who was two years behind Vincent in Williams, decided this summer to fire Alan J. Hirschfield, CEO of Columbia Pictures Industries. For more than a year, the company has been turning up after David Begelman, president of the film studio, had discovered his checks.
Vincent replaced Hirschfield on July 13 and managed the company so well that Allen & Co. sold it in Coca-Cola Co. in 1982 for $ 692 million. Vincent was promoted to president and was appointed executive vice-president of the new Coca-Cola entertainment business sector.
He went to Hollywood only about six times a year and has left his production heads – Prix, Guy Mcilwaine and David Puttnam – Make artistic decisions. While Vincent directed the company, Columbia released “Ghostbusters”, “The Big Chill”, “Gandhi” and “Tootsie”.
However, he remained devoted to baseball.
“He talked about baseball every day,” said Allen. “On a few occasions, I went with him to the day to open the dishes.”
On September 1, 1987, Coca-Cola bought Tri-Star and Victor A. Kaufman of Tri-Star photos replaced Vincent, who was reassigned to supervise investments in shares in Coca-Cola Bottling properties. Vincent left in 1988 and went to the New York office in Caplin & Drysdale as a partner. Before setting up, Giamatti asked him to join baseball.
“I had always been a baseball fan,” said Vincent. “I followed baseball as long as I remember.”
In one of his sustainable acts as a commissioner, he chaired a committee of eight members for statistical precision, which deleted the asterisk that had been next to the entrance to Roger Maris as chief of Home Run of the season and deleted 50 no-eight. The group has defined a boost like matches of nine or more rounds that ended without success.
He recorded interviews with members of the renowned temple and Negro leagues players for an oral history project that led to three books: “The Ould Game in Town” (2006), “We would have played for Nothing “(2009) and” This is what is inside the lines that matter “(2010). In 2024, he gave a gift of $ 2 million to Yale to provide the position of the Yale baseball coach on behalf of his father.
Vincent married the old McMahon Valerie in 1965 and they had a daughter Anne and twin sons William and Edward. They divorced in 1994 and he married Christina Watkins in 1998.
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