Fay Vincent, baseball commissioner in a stormy era, died at 86 years old

Fay Vincent, a lawyer who presided over Major League Baseball as the eighth commissioner at a time when he was shaken by work conflicts, the first shadows of steroids and, literally, a powerful earthquake that interrupted the World Series from 1989, died on Saturday in Vero Beach, Florida, he was 86 years old.

His death in a hospital was caused by complications from bladder cancer, said his wife, Christina. Mr. Vincent lived in Vero Beach.

Before reaching the highest baseball post, Mr. Vincent overcome a debilitating injury as a student to become a legal partner, head of the Securities Exchange Commission, president of Columbia Pictures and vice-president of Coca-Cola.

But he was the most visible for the public in his time as a baseball commissioner, from September 13, 1989 to September 7, 1992, reaching this position in a period of sorrow. He had been a sub-commissioner under his good friend A. Bartlett Giamatti when Mr. Giamatti suddenly died of a 51-year heart attack. The owners of the major league teams then handed over to Mr. Vincent les reins.

A little more than a month later, it was present when, shortly after 5 p.m. on October 19, 1989, the Bay region experienced a severe earthquake – 7.1 on the Richter scale – which rolled out the park of San Francisco candlesticks, as if it were ready to fall apart.