Fay Vincent

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Francis Thomas "Fay" Vincent, Jr. (born May 29, 1938 in Waterbury, Connecticut) is a former entertainment lawyer and sports executive who served as the 8th commissioner of Major League Baseball from September 13, 1989 to September 7, 1992.

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[edit] Early life

Fay Vincent was an exceptional athlete as a young man, showing talent in track and field as well as football. Mr. Vincent's life changed forever when a near-fatal accident in college crushed one of his legs. He'd been locked inside his dorm room as a prank. Climbing out onto the roof to escape, he slipped off the ledge, which was four stories high. Suffering a crushed spine and paralyzed legs, Vincent spent three months in a form of traction.[1] He overcame his initial diagnosis, which was that he would never walk. But Vincent's leg has never fully recovered and he has been relegated to the use of a cane.

Mr. Vincent is a graduate of The Hotchkiss School[1], Williams College, class of 1960, which he attended on a full academic scholarship and graduated with honors, and Yale Law School, class of 1963.

After graduating from law school, Mr. Vincent was a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Caplin & Drysdale. Mr. Vincent also served as Associate Director of the Division of Corporation Finance of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

[edit] Columbia Pictures and Coca-Cola career

Prior to becoming deputy commissioner under his friend A. Bartlett Giamatti, Fay Vincent was the chairman of Columbia Pictures (beginning in 1978) and the vice chairman of Coca-Cola (beginning in March 1982). In April 1986, Vincent was promoted to the position of Executive Vice President of the Coca-Cola Company which placed him in charge over all of the company's entertainment activities.

[edit] Actions as commissioner

At his longtime friend incoming commissioner Bart Giamatti’s behest, Vincent accepted the position of deputy commissioner [2] He became the 8th commissioner of baseball following Giamatti's untimely death on September 1, 1989, and presided over the 1989 World Series, which was interrupted by the Loma Prieta earthquake; the owners' lockout during Spring Training of the 1990 season; and a suspension of George Steinbrenner in his first year. Before accepting the job as Commissioner of Baseball, Vincent consulted with Bart Giamatti's widow, Toni, to make sure she thought it was appropriate for him to do so.

In 1990, National League president Bill White was prepared to suspend umpire Joe West for slamming Philadelphia pitcher Dennis Cook to the field, but Vincent intervened and no discipline was imposed.

During his commissionership, Vincent made it known (e.g. while being interviewed by Pat O'Brien during CBS' coverage of Game 4 of the 1991 World Series) that if he had the chance, he would get rid of the designated hitter rule.

Vincent has also been connected with Pete Rose's lifetime banishment from baseball; however, Rose's banishment began while Giamatti was commissioner, not Vincent (although Vincent led the investigation and was involved in the negotiations). Vincent has publicly said he does not support Rose's reinstatement.

See also: Dowd Report

[edit] 1989 World Series

Main article: 1989 World Series

On October 17, 1989, Vincent sat in a field box behind the left dugout at San Francisco's Candlestick Park. At 5:04 p.m., just prior to Game 3 of the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics, the Loma Prieta earthquake (which measured 7.1 on the Richter scale) hit. At approximately 5:35 p.m., after coming to the conclusion that the power couldn't be restored before sunset, Vincent ordered the game to be postponed. According to Vincent, he had already made the decision to postpone Game 3 without telling anybody first. As a result, the umpires filed a form of protest of Vincent's decision. However, the game had to be postponed due to trouble with gas lines as well as the power issue.

The World Series ultimately resumed after a ten day postponement (and some initial conflict between Vincent and San Francisco mayor Art Agnos, who felt that the World Series ought to have been delayed much longer) on October 27, 1989. While presenting the World Series Trophy to the Athletics, who wound up winning the World Series in a four game sweep, Vincent summed up the 1989 World Series as a "Remarkable World Series in many respects."

[edit] 1990 lockout

In February 1990, owners announced that spring training would not be starting as scheduled. This occurred after MLBPA Executive Director Donald Fehr became afraid that the owners would institute a salary cap. Fehr believed that a salary cap could possibly restrict the number of choices free agents could make and a pay-for-performance scale would eliminate multiyear contracts. The lockout, which was the seventh work stoppage in baseball since 1972, lasted 32 games and wiped out all of spring training.

Vincent worked with both the owners and MLBPA, and on March 19, 1990, Vincent was able to announce a new Basic Agreement (which raised the minimum major league salary from $68,000 to $100,000 and established a six-man study committee on revenue sharing). As a consequence for the lockout, Opening Day for the 1990 season was moved back a week to April 9, and the season was extended by three days to accommodate the normal 162-game schedule.

[edit] George Steinbrenner

On July 30, 1990, Vincent banned New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner from baseball for life after Steinbrenner paid Howie Spira, a small-time gambler, $40,000 for "dirt" on his outfielder Dave Winfield after Winfield sued Steinbrenner for failing to pay his foundation the $300,000 guaranteed in his contract. Steinbrenner was eventually reinstated in 1993 (one year after Vincent left office).

[edit] Steve Howe

On June 24, 1992, Vincent permanently suspended pitcher Steve Howe for repeated drug offenses. Vincent was incensed when upper Yankee management (Buck Showalter, Gene Michael, and Jack Lawn) agreed to testify on Howe's behalf, and threatened them with expulsion from the game:

“ You have effectively resigned from baseball by agreeing to appear at that hearing.... you should have left your conscience and your principles outside the door. ”

Amusingly, the three men were unaffected by Vincent's hyperbole, testified for Howe as promised, and remained active in baseball. Three months later, Vincent was removed from his job as commissioner. An arbitrator overturned Vincent's suspension of Howe on November 11, 1992.

[edit] Collusion

Fay Vincent on the effects of collusion:[3]

“ The Union basically doesn’t trust the Ownership because collusion was a $280 million theft by Selig and Reinsdorf of that money from the players. I mean, they rigged the signing of free agents. They got caught. They paid $280 million to the players. And I think that’s polluted labor relations in baseball ever since it happened. I think it’s the reason Fehr has no trust in Selig. ”

[edit] 1993 expansion

In June 1991, Vincent declared that the American League would receive $42 million of the National League's $190 million in expansion revenue and that the AL would provide players in the National League expansion draft (involving the Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins). In an attempt to win support in the American League and balance the vote, Vincent decreed that the AL owners were entitled to 22 percent of the $190 million take. This decision marked the first time in expansion history that leagues were required to share expansion revenue or provide players for another league's expansion draft. Vincent said the owners expanded to raise money to pay their collusion debt.[4]

[edit] Realignment

Just prior to leaving office, Vincent had plans to realign the National League. Vincent wanted the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals to move from the Eastern Division to the Western Division. The Cincinnati Reds and Atlanta Braves, who had been a geographic mistake ever since Major League Baseball realigned in 1969, would move to the Eastern Division. National League president Bill White warned Vincent that realigning without league approval would be in violation of the National League Constitution.

Many thought this plan would be beneficial to the league as a whole, especially by building a regional rivalry between the new franchise in Miami and the Atlanta Braves. The Cubs, however, opposed the move, suggesting that fans in the Central Time Zone would be forced to watch more games originating on the West Coast with later broadcast times (had the realignment included the use of a balanced schedule, the Cubs would have actually played more games against teams outside their division).

On July 17, 1992, the Chicago Cubs sued Vincent and asked the U.S. District Court in Chicago for a preliminary injunction to prevent implementation, which was granted two weeks later. After Vincent's attorneys appealed, oral arguments were scheduled for August 30 of that year. Ultimately, Vincent resigned before the litigation was scheduled to resume, so as a result, the Cubs dropped their suit.

Although Vincent's vision never really came into fruition, Major League Baseball did in fact realign in 1994, albeit in the form of three divisions in each league, and the addition of an expanded playoff format.

[edit] Vincent's relationship with the owners

His relationship with baseball's owners was always tenuous at best; he resigned in 1992 after the owners gave him an 18-9 no confidence vote. The owners were still angry at Vincent over his intervention during the 1990 lockout. The owners were also disappointed by dwindling television ratings in light of a $1.2 billion, four year deal with CBS (which ultimately cost the network $500 million) beginning in 1990 (Vincent's first full season as commissioner) and upwardly spiraling salaries. (It is also important to note that CBS itself contributed to decreasing ratings thanks to the haphazard scheduling of "Game of the Week" broadcasts during the regular season to the point that fans grew tired of tuning into no baseball on summer Saturdays.) They also accused him of acting in a high-handed manner, especially in the Howe affair.

The leaders in the movement to oust Vincent were members of what The Sporting News later dubbed The Great Lakes Gang:[5]

In his farewell, Vincent said

“ To do the job without angering an owner is impossible. I can't make all twenty-eight of my bosses happy. People have told me I'm the last commissioner. If so, it's a sad thing. I hope they [the owners] learn this lesson before too much damage is done. ”

He was replaced by Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig. Fay Vincent was never able to complete the five year term that he had inherited from Bart Giamatti. Because Selig's family retained ownership of the Brewers, Vincent was the last truly impartial commissioner of baseball, since he held no ownership of a team himself. Vincent would later contend that Major League Baseball made a huge mistake by not appointing his deputy commissioner Steve Greenberg — the son of the Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg — as the commissioner.

[edit] Life after baseball

After stepping down from the commissioner's office, Vincent became a private investor and the president of the New England Collegiate Baseball League. Vincent would serve as the NECBL’s president from 1998 to 2003.

In 2001, when baseball owners voted to contract two clubs, Vincent criticized them for not consulting the players' union. In 2002, Vincent wrote his autobiography entitled The Last Commissioner: A Baseball Valentine.[6]

In 2005, during an interview Fox Sports Radio, Vincent shared his thoughts on the controversy surrounding Texas Rangers pitcher Kenny Rogers, who received a 20-game suspension for a tirade directed at two TV cameramen. Vincent believed that Rogers, who had a record of 9-4 with 2.45 ERA at the time of the incident, shouldn't have been allowed to play in the All-Star Game in Detroit. Vincent said

“ The All-Star Game is a great honor. Again, if you are trying to send a message to players to think twice before you do something stupid, one way to do that is by sending the message that, and by the way, if there is an All-Star Game, you're not going to get to play in that. ”

Fay Vincent has also been critical of Major League Baseball's handling of the dreaded strike in 1994. Some observers feel that Vincent's absence (or any other permanent commissioner at the time) could have been a decisive turn in finding a compromise agreement. Vincent believes that the strike turned out to be a lost cause since the end result was federal judge Sonia Sotomayor ruling that work had to resume under the previous collective bargaining agreement. Vincent has hinted that he believes that the strike was instigated by the owners (including his successor Bud Selig) who were frustrated by their diminishing power over the MLBPA. Vincent strongly believes that the cancellation of the World Series in 1994 (the first time that there wasn't a World Series played in 90 years) was a major mistake.

In March 2006, Vincent called on baseball to investigate (similar to the Dowd Report surrounding Pete Rose) possible steroids use by Barry Bonds, saying the cloud hanging over his pursuit of the home run record is a crisis akin to the Black Sox scandal from 1919.

“ I don't think it's an exaggeration to say it's the biggest crisis that's hit baseball since the '20s and the Black Sox scandal. The generic problem of steroids in baseball has been brought to a head by the Bonds situation. It's really an enormous mess because it has threatened all baseball records, everything that was done in the '90s forward is suspect because of the likelihood that lots of players were using steroids. ”

Vincent wrote in the April 24, 2006 issue of Sports Illustrated, that with most of Bonds' official troubles being off the field, and with the strength of the players' union, there was little Bud Selig could do beyond appointing an investigating committee. Vincent said that Selig is largely "an observer of a forum beyond his reach."

Fay Vincent also believes that the only franchises in Major League Baseball to have a chance to win are the ones that have their own regional sports networks. Vincent has credited Atlanta Braves owner Ted Turner as one of the first to capitalize on this.

On October 18, 2007, Vincent recently appeared with sportscaster Bob Costas at Williams College for "A Conversation About Sports", moderated by Will Dudley, Associate Professor of Philosophy.

On May 18, 2008, Fairfield University conferred an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on Mr. Vincent where he served on the Board of Trustees from 1991 to 2002; and he created the need-based Alice Lynch Vincent Scholarship Fund in memory of his mother in December 1996.[7]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Cohn, Roger. "Nothing But Curve Balls", The New York Times, June 3, 1990. Accessed December 18, 2007. "At the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Conn., young Fay played guard on the football team, excelled at Latin and French and was remembered by classmates for his witty parodies of the poetry of Keats and Coleridge."
  2. ^ http://www.businessofbaseball.com/vincent_interview.htm
  3. ^ http://www.businessofbaseball.com/vincent_interview.htm
  4. ^ http://www.businessofbaseball.com/vincent_interview.htm
  5. ^ The Great Lakes gang - influential baseball club owners from the Midwest; includes related article | Sporting News, The | Find Articles at BNET.com
  6. ^ http://www.empirepage.com/bookreview/review23.html
  7. ^ Fairfield University awards degrees to 1,233 graduates at 2008 commencement ceremony. Retrieved on 2008-05-18.

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Bart Giamatti		 Commissioner of Baseball
1989–1992		 Succeeded by
Bud Selig
v • d • e
Major League Baseball Commissioners
1920-1944: Kenesaw Mountain Landis | 1945-1951: Happy Chandler | 1951-1965: Ford Frick | 1965-1968: William Eckert | 1969-1984: Bowie Kuhn | 1984-1989: Peter Ueberroth | 1989: Bart Giamatti | 1989-1992: Fay Vincent | 1992-present: Bud Selig