Vincent, Francis Thomas, Jr. 1938- (Fay Vincent)

PERSONAL:

Born May 29, 1938, in Waterbury, CT; son of Francis Thomas (a telephone company employee and sports official) and Alice (a teacher) Vincent; mar- ried Valerie McMahon, July 3, 1965; children: Anne, William and Edward (twins). Education: Williams College, B.A. (cum laude), 1960; Yale University Law School, LL.D., 1963.

CAREER:

Attorney, businessman, and Major League Baseball commissioner. Admitted to the Bar of Connecticut, 1963, New York, 1964, and Washington, DC, 1969; Whitman and Ransom, New York, NY, associate, 1963-68; Caplin and Drysdale, Washington, DC, partner, 1968-78; Securities and Exchange Commission, Washington, associate director of the Division of Corporate Finance, 1978; Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., New York, president and chief executive officer, 1978-83, chairman, 1983; Coca-Cola Co., New York, senior vice president, chief executive officer of entertainment division, 1983-86, executive vice president, 1986-88; Major League Baseball, New York, NY, deputy baseball commissioner, 1989, commissioner, 1989-92.

WRITINGS:

(Under pseudonym Fay Vincent) The Last Commissioner: A Baseball Valentine, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2002.

(Under pseudonym Fay Vincent) The Only Game in Town: Baseball Stars of the 1930s and 1940s Talk about the Game They Loved, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2006.

(Under pseudonym Fay Vincent) We Would Have Played for Nothing: Baseball Stars of the 1950s and 1960s Talk about the Game They Loved, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2008.

SIDELIGHTS:

Francis Thomas Vincent, Jr., who writes as Fay Vincent, became the eighth commissioner of Major League Baseball (MLB) following the death of A. Bartlett Giamatti in 1989. During his previous year as deputy commissioner, Vincent was involved in the investigation into gambling by Cincinnati Reds manager and former MLB star Pete Rose, and he drew up the document that banned Rose from the sport. Soon after, Commissioner Giamatti suffered a fatal heart attack, and Vincent was chosen to fill out the last three years of his term.

Vincent grew up in the New Haven, Connecticut, area and attended Hotchkiss, a prep school in Lakeside, Connecticut, where he was an excellent student and athlete, before entering Williams College. As a prank, his roommate locked him in their dorm room, and Vincent climbed through the window to the ledge outside. But he slipped and fell four stories, crushing his spine and two vertebrae that surgeons later rebuilt with bone from Vincent's hip. He was told that he would likely never walk again. Vincent did walk, however, and without a cane, before graduating Williams, but his legs were not strong, and he was never able to run.

Vincent earned his law degree at his father's alma mater, Yale University, where the senior Vincent had played both football and baseball. Vincent inherited his love of sports from his father, who also served as an official in the National Football League and All-American Conference and who umpired baseball games until he was seventy-six, two years before his death. As an attorney, Vincent worked in a law firm and with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and in 1978, he was offered the position of president and chief executive officer of Columbia Pictures, which was in disarray following the disclosure of misuse of funds by two of its executives. Vincent's decisions increased profits and reduced debt and helped the company avoid a hostile takeover. He sold divisions and put more money into movies, many of which were blockbusters. In his first year, Columbia released both The China Syndrome and Kramer vs. Kramer.

In 1982, Columbia was purchased by Coca-Cola, and Vincent served as an officer of both companies before resigning in 1988. When his good friend and former Yale president, A. Bartlett Giamatti, was appointed baseball commissioner, Giamatti created the position of deputy commissioner and asked Vincent to accept it. Giamatti felt that Vincent's business and legal expertise would be an asset in managing the game.

Vincent had been in office just one month when the October 17, 1989, San Francisco earthquake resulted in his cancellation of the World Series game between the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants, which was then rescheduled. In 1990, opening day was delayed by one week while a settlement was reached between management and the players' association. During Vincent's tenure, two new teams were added to the National League. Miami, Florida, and Denver, Colorado, were granted expansion teams that would begin playing in 1993, and in 1991, Vincent announced that the American League would receive forty-two million dollars of the National League's expansion revenue of 190 million dollars, marking the first time expansion revenue would be shared. Vincent suspended New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner when he hired gambler Harold Spira to investigate outfielder Dave Winfield. In 1992, as owners prepared to enter into labor disputes, they held a no-confidence vote and asked Vincent to resign, which he did on September 7. It was a question of whether Vincent, who was paid by the owners, should be more concerned with their interests or the interests of the sport in general.

Vincent recalls his life in law, business, and baseball in his memoir, The Last Commissioner: A Baseball Valentine. It is a tribute to baseball in which Vincent describes his encounters with his childhood heroes and offers a warm tribute to Giamatti. It is a collection of stories and memories, the proceeds from which are being donated to a fund benefiting players from the Negro Leagues.

The Pete Rose affair is well documented, as are the events surrounding the 1989 earthquake. Vincent also tells of his conversation with former President George H.W. Bush, in which he urged him to run for the White House. The Boston Globe's Bill Littlefield wrote that Vincent is "frank in his evaluation of Bud Selig's commissionership as a fraud, and says at one point of Selig and fellow owners Jerry Reinsdorf, Jackie Autry, and Doug Danforth, ‘I truly could not stomach the thought of being in the same room with these people.’"

Nicholas Dawidoff reviewed the memoir in the New York Times Book Review, writing that "some of his [Vincent's] observations are most compelling, like the dual portrait of [Ted] Williams and [Joe] DiMaggio. Vincent efficiently strips DiMaggio down to his calculating essence, but does so in a way that enlarges him as a fascinating study in pop heroism. The tale of how the notoriously open-necked Williams was shamed into wearing a tie is likewise gallantly told." Dawidoff noted that "not only are the details of the case against Rose set forth in convincing fashion, but Vincent's account of the emotional Giamatti's response to the misery of prosecuting a fallen athletic hero is commendable because it does not simply strive for pathos. Giamatti died just after the Rose affair concluded, and it is to Vincent's credit that he is able to explain the premature loss of such an unusual person in terms of character, not just circumstance." A Kirkus Reviews contributor wrote that "these stories are expressions of love for baseball, touching equally on good and bad moments, yet always affectionate and filled with the hope that the institution will do the right thing."

Vincent continues to express his love for the Great American Pastime in his collections of interviews, The Only Game in Town: Baseball Stars of the 1930s and 1940s Talk about the Game They Loved and We Would Have Played for Nothing: Baseball Stars of the 1950s and 1960s Talk about the Game They Loved. "Inspired by Lawrence Ritter's The Glory of Their Times, an oral history of men who played at the turn of the century," explained James J. DiGiacomo in America, "Vincent picks up the story in the 1930's and 1940's as he interviews 10 stars of those days." "The book, while a bit of a mixed bag, quality wise," wrote "Mike D.," a reviewer for Associated Content, "is certainly a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the time period, an era where ballplayers went off to war, Jackie Robinson and then others broke the color line in baseball, and the game's popularity soared." "Vincent did not impose structure on his subjects, and there are a few redundancies in the narrative," said a Publishers Weekly contributor. "Baseball lifers of a certain age will find it not only a satisfying journey back to their own early memories of the game," DiGiacomo stated, "but also a stimulus to compare the games and the players of those times and our own." "This is wonderful book on its own," concluded Wes Lukowsky in Booklist, "and the series is sure to become a cornerstone of any baseball collection."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Newsmakers, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1990.

Vincent, Fay, The Last Commissioner: A Baseball Valentine, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2002.

PERIODICALS

America, April 3, 2006, "In Their Own Words," p. 32.

Biography, June 22, 2006, Ihsan Taylor, review of The Only Game in Town: Baseball Stars of the 1930s and 1940s Talk about the Game They Loved, p. 551.

Booklist, September 1, 2002, Wes Lukowsky, review of The Last Commissioner: A Baseball Valentine, p. 41; April 15, 2006, Wes Lukowsky, review of The Only Game in Town, p. 20.

Boston Globe, Bill Littlefield, review of The Last Commissioner, p. D6.

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2002, review of The Last Commissioner, p. 1293.

New York Times Book Review, September 29, 2002, Nicholas Dawidoff, review of The Last Commissioner, p. 10.

Publishers Weekly, September 16, 2002, review of The Last Commissioner, p. 61; February 6, 2006, review of The Only Game in Town, p. 56.

U.S. News & World Report, October 21, 2002, Avery Comarow, "A Baseball Fan, Still and Forever," interview, p. 8.

ONLINE

Associated Content,http://www.associatedcontent.com/ (June 17, 2008), Mike D., review of The Only Game in Town.

Major League Baseball,http://mlb.mlb.com/ (June 17, 2008), "Francis T. Vincent, Jr.: Eighth Commissioner of Baseball."