From The New York Times by George Vecsey:
“Fay Vincent, a lawyer who presided over Major League Baseball as its eighth commissioner during a time when it was shaken by labor strife, the first shadows of steroid use and, quite literally, a powerful earthquake that interrupted the 1989 World Series, died on Saturday in Vero Beach, Fla. He was 86.”
I always found the most interesting thing about Vincent was the way he acquired the injury that compelled the use of a cane for much of his adult life.
From the obituary:
“After dominating as a lineman on the freshman team, Mr. Vincent was in his dormitory in December when a roommate pulled a prank and locked him in his fourth-floor bedroom. Needing to use the bathroom, Mr. Vincent decided to climb out his window and into an adjacent one but slipped on an icy ledge and fell. A railing on the second floor broke his fall and may have saved his life, but he was left with two broken vertebrae…”
Vincent’s term in office — necessitated by the sudden death of his predecessor, Bart Giammati — was also highlighted by the suspension of George Steinbrenner.
He published his memoirs in The Last Commissioner: A Baseball Valentine in 2002. He also released three books of oral histories:
- The Only Game in Town: Baseball Stars of the 1930s and 1940s Talk About the Game They Loved
- We Would Have Played for Nothing: Baseball Stars of the 1950s and 1960s Talk About the Game They Loved
- It’s What’s Inside the Lines That Counts: Baseball Stars of the 1970s and 1980s Talk About the Game They Loved
is available on Amazon.com,
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